IRISH TROOPS IN Lebanon have 30 plus days of rations and water which was moved into the three camps in recent weeks in anticipation of an Israeli invasion, the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence has said.
Lieutenant General Sean Clancy and Tánaiste Micheál Martin, speaking at the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers conference in Carlow, both insisted that the troops in three locations in the south of the country have “ample amounts of water and rations”.
Martin said that there had been resupplies carried out to ensure that they were well stocked.
Clancy said: “I can say very clearly that part of our mitigations in advance of this escalation was, of course, to have resupplies and 30 days plus available in all locations of the Irish personnel overseas the last couple of days has of course, initiated that supply chain.
“We have ample supply of water and food and common necessities available at this time. And of course, as the as we go through day by day, the force commander will then, in time, decide what time replenishment of those resources will be. But we have ample as it stands at this point in time, in each location.”
The Irish are at three locations in South Lebanon with the vast majority of the 340 troops located at Camp Shamrock near At Tiri with an outpost further south at UNP 652. It has been confirmed that outposts south of At Tiri had Israeli Merkava main battle tanks parked outside their gates yesterday.
Eight Israeli troops died yesterday close to the Irish camps in fighting with Hezbollah near the village of Maroun al Res.
Sources speaking to The Journal this morning said that water tankers which regularly supply outposts are unlikely to be running but that logistics teams in the country had prepared for that to happen.
It is understood that Irish troops had been doing supply runs to other bases in recent days also before the the ground offensive started.
The Irish are there as part of the United Nations UNIFIL mission along with more than 10,000 other soldiers, sailors and air crew from 50 nations.
The Irish work with Polish troops in a grouping known as POLLBATT.
Many of those soldiers spent the last two days in bunkers, or Groundhog as it is known in military speak, as large scale bombings happened across the region.
The Tánaiste said there was no consideration to withdraw troops.
“No, not at this stage. We are part of a wider, 10,000 force made up of quite a number of troop contributing countries.
“We are all part of a wider UN peacekeeping in different parts of the world and so we operate under that common command.
“We will work with the authorities, keep everything under review in terms of how the situation progresses.
“But force protection is our number one priority. Our fundamental focus now is on the protection of our troops on the ground and of our people on the ground, given what is happening,” he said.
It will be up to United Nations officials to decide if the UNIFIL mission will withdraw – contingencies are in place to move troops by sea from the South Lebanese city of Tyre to Cyprus.
Under the UN resolution 1701 which established the mission in 1978 troops have an obligation to protect the civilian population.
Martin said that the South Lebanon region has seen much of the population flee but said that it would be for the commander on the ground to decide to assist civilians inside the Irish camp.
“The force commander underground makes calls on this as the in the light of the circumstances of where the conflict is At any given point in time and how it’s progressing,” he said.
It is understood that there are approximately 150 Irish citizens registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs to be in Lebanon at present.
Martin reiterated his call for those people to leave the country.
“We were always concerned the situation would turn for the worse. We are scenario planning and we will be taking a number of measures to help Irish citizens or those who want to leave, to leave. We will have further details on that later.
“We have a memorandum of understanding with the UK, but they have thousands of citizens in Lebanon as indeed do other European states. But we will work in coordination with European Union member states in respect of helping civilians to leave.
“At the moment, very few commercial flights but the airport is still operating and if we need to charter we will. We have taken preparatory steps on all of those fronts.
“We will work with other members states and we will coordinate our activities because Europe works in concert together now and Ireland and the UK being close neighbours, we generally work together on matters of this kind.”
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