ISRAEL’S TARGETING OF peacekeepers in Lebanon is nothing short of a war crime, and “we don’t have to fudge the language about it”, a security expert has said.

Shelly Dean, a researcher at UCD’s School of Law and Government told The Explainer podcast that the recent attacks on Unifil observation posts breach international law.

Irish troops are deployed under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. It’s Ireland’s largest overseas deployment as part of a joint Irish and Polish Battalion, including a contingent from Hungary and Malta.

“You don’t target observation posts, you don’t target UN compounds. It’s not what we do,” said Dean.

“The difficulty, of course, is that there’s no broker to convince the Israelis to recalibrate their decision making.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Lebanon’s prime minister that the safety of peacekeepers is “essential” and has called for a diplomatic resolution to Israel’s offensive. But little action has been taken by the superpower.

Dean says the timing of the conflict – erupting a year before the US presidential election – has meant key players in politics are reluctant to make any big moves that may hurt them at the polls.

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The Israeli military fired at a United Nations observation post in Lebanon again this week.

Separately, peacekeepers reported three incidents of unidentified fire impacting Unifil positions, teams and vehicles this week, adding no peacekeepers were hurt but calling the security situation “extremely challenging”.

Earlier this month, Israeli tanks destroyed the entrance to a peacekeepers’ camp in Lebanon and “forcibly entered” the position in what Unifil called “shocking violations”.

Ghanaian troops were injured in the incident, but Irish soldiers were unharmed at the time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for peacekeepers to retreat if they want to stay out of “harm’s way”, but Dean says that’s not the solution.

“The challenge there is that Unifil is there to fulfill a particular role, which is to maintain this space so that neither protagonist gets to run over there and physically create a changing on the ground,” she said.

“If facts change on the ground and Unifil were to withdraw any attempt to remedy the situation would take doubly long, not least because that space is would have been diminished.

“We can’t afford to jeopardise things even further.”

‘Smart power’

Dean says Irish peacekeepers, although not the largest contingent, have been essential to fulfilling the UN’s mandate in south Lebanon.

“The role of moderation and mediation between parties and building relationships with local communities is often deemed to be, by many, soft security.

“We’re very good at chatting with the local people and creating camaraderie and building relationships, but that’s fundamental and essential for any kind of restoration reconciliation.”

She said due to imprinting of cultures on each other, the Irish and the Lebanese “get on very well”.

What the Irish troops have is called “smart power”. Rather than being combative, they de-escalate situations, which is vital in a place where “a car accident has political ramifications if it’s the wrong people in the car accident”.

Having had a presence in the area since 1978, relationships have been built over generations.

“Some of the peacekeepers that you speak to will tell you that when they’ve gone on various tours … the little kids that you gave sweets to a decade ago might well be far more important and have affiliations that can be very beneficial.”