The soldiers have been caught up in rocket, artillery and drone battles between Israel and Islamic paramilitary group Hezbollah that have been raging in southern Lebanon
Irish peacekeepers serving in southern Lebanon have had to run for cover hundreds of times in the last six months, their boss has revealed.
Israel attacked Gaza immediately and killed some 35,000 people - but the conflict quickly spilled over to the Blue Line - the de facto border between Lebanon and the Jewish state where Irish soldiers keep the peace. Hezbollah launched attacks from southern Lebanon to divert Israeli resources from Gaza - and there have been clashes almost every day since.
“The body armour and the helmet they wear, the state of the art armoured personnel carriers that they drive in and the bunkrised facilities.” And he also revealed that bombs and rockets have both landed close to the Irish bases - and have also been fired near them as well. "They have had far closer impacts, in some cases within 100 metres. It is very, very loud. You can’t necessarily hear people talking. There can be a shockwave effect, depending on the type of munition that is used. It certainly gets the adrenaline flowing.”
“They are volunteer soldiers who have chosen to join Oglaigh na hEireann and have in the main chosen to go overseas. And those soldiers are looking to be professionally challenged. They have trained for this and the fact that they get to exercise their tactics, their techniques and their procedures is professionally rewarding for them.
“For example, we have had a number of occasions when rockets have been launched very close to our bases and those rockets have gone either overhead or in very close proximity. If such rockets are intercepted and they fall, that can cause a challenge.” The senior officer said he did not believe the conflict in his area would end any time soon. He said: ““We closely monitor what is going on in the region, because that has an impact at the tactical level here.
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