Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Nayib Mikati vowed Friday to «punish» those responsible for the death on Wednesday of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) ‘blue helmet’ in the southern Lebanese town of Al Aqbiya.
«The atmosphere in which international soldiers are working is good and investigations are continuing into the death of the Irish soldier. Whoever is found guilty will receive his punishment,» he said, as reported by his office through a series of messages on his account on the social network Twitter.
Mikati, who visited the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqura to meet with the head of the mission, Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz, stressed that he «deeply regrets» the incident and praised the «contribution» of the ‘blue helmets’ to «peace and stability in southern Lebanon».
«I am here to affirm once again that the Lebanese people, and I personally, deeply appreciate the work they are doing alongside the Army to maintain peace and calm in the south (of Lebanon),» he said, before having words of remembrance for «the martyrs of these forces, whose blood has mingled with the blood of the martyrs of the Army and the population of the south.»
Finally, he said that «Lebanon is committed to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, respects international resolutions and calls on the UN to compel Israel to implement them fully and put an end to its repeated aggressions against Lebanon and its violations of its sovereignty by land, sea and air».
The death of the Irish ‘blue helmet’ took place when unidentified persons fired small arms shots at two armored vehicles carrying eight servicemen to the capital Beirut, the Irish Armed Forces said on Thursday.
For his part, Uafiq Safa, in charge of coordination of the Shiite militia-party Hezbollah, said the incident was not «intentional» and disassociated the group from what happened. He also expressed his condolences to UNIFIL and asked for an investigation into the incident.
UNIFIL was deployed in the country in 1978 and restored after the 2006 conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militia-party Hezbollah, which lasted just over a month and resulted in the death of some 1,200 people in Lebanon -most of them civilians- and 160 Israelis -most of them soldiers-, as well as significant material damage in the Arab country.
Resolution 1701 calls for an end to the conflict, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and the deployment in the south of the country of Lebanese forces and of UNIFIL itself. It also calls for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, which includes Hezbollah, and that there be no armed forces other than those of UNIFIL and Lebanon south of the Litani River, which includes both Israel and the Lebanese party-militia.
