Rocket hits Irish Blue Helmet base in southern Lebanon

A base of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was hit by a rocket on Wednesday night, as reported this Thursday by the Irish Armed Forces, whose ‘blue helmets’ are in command of these facilities.

The attacked base, Camp Shamrock, is located about seven kilometers from the border with Israel. The head of the Irish Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sean Clancy, has stated that the projectile was supposedly moving “from north to south”, which in principle would point to a launch by Lebanese militias.

The projectile fell in an area where no one was there and “caused minimal damage to the ground”, explained the officer, thus ruling out personal victims in a base that houses hundreds of ‘blue helmets’, reports public radio and television RTE.

The Prime Minister of Ireland, Simon Harris, welcomed in a statement that there was no personal injury, but stressed that this was a “completely unacceptable” incident. “Peacekeepers are protected by International Law,” he stressed.

This same week, the Austrian authorities also reported that eight of their UNIFIL soldiers had been injured by the impact of another projectile at the contingent’s main base, in Naqoura. The mission then pointed to the “probable” responsibility of Hezbollah or related groups, given that the rocket had been launched from the north.