Ireland has lodged a formal complaint against Israel after its soldiers fired upon Irish peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
While helping locals in the village of Yaroun, which was heavily damaged by the Israeli military last year, a joint unit of six Irish blue helmets and members of the Lebanese Armed Forces was shot towards by Israeli military personnel.
Up to 30 shots were fired towards the unit over the space of nine minutes, with UNIFIL confirming all bullets landing within 50 metres of the unit.
Ireland's complaint, formally known as a 'démarche', considers the incident to be "completely unacceptable in terms of the safety of peacekeepers and the execution of their mandated duties".
It has been served to the Israeli Government via the UN.
"These concerns are held at the highest levels" of Ireland's Government and the Defence Forces, the complaint says.
Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Simon Harris gave permission for it to be sent after receiving a briefing from incoming Defence Forces Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Rossa Mulcahy over the incident on Thursday.
Harris described the incident as “reckless, intimidatory, totally unacceptable and a clear breach of the international rules surrounding peacekeeping”.
He paid tribute to “our personnel deployed with UNIFIL, who are operating in an increasingly volatile and tense environment”.
No soldiers were injured in the incident which coincidentally took place on International UN Peacekeepers’ Day.
The 126th Infantry Battalion deployed to Lebanon this month as part of the Unifil mission. It is made up of 298 Irish soldiers and 10 from Malta, with over a third of personnel on their first overseas mission.
The démarche correspondence is the second to have been sent by Ireland to Israel this month.
In mid-May, a number of Irish diplomats were part of a diplomatic unit which also had bullets fired towards them in Jenin in the West Bank. No one was injured.
“I think there’s no question but that Israel has engineered a campaign against Ireland because of the stance we have taken at the United Nations, at the European Union and at the International Court of Justice, where we’ve legally intervened in the South African case [against Israel],” Martin said.
“It’s not that individual companies are raising it with us, but we are hearing back from our embassies and elsewhere that people are raising it.”
He added: “There has been propaganda against Ireland, in claims that we support Hamas – which is utter nonsense,” he said. “People have been contacted ahead of Irish embassy events and are then turning up at various receptions asking ‘What’s happening in Ireland?’ and so forth.”
There was also a cyber campaign against Ireland, the Taoiseach suggested.
“We’ve condemned Hamas consistently, from day one, for the slaughter of October 7, and consistently called for the release of all hostages, yet you’ll see online a lot of attempts to smear Ireland,” he said.
Last week, President Michael D. Higgins passionately shot down claims made by the Israeli Government of antisemitism against Ireland for its stance on Gaza, labelling them "slander" and "propaganda".
"If you criticise Netanyahu's policies you are then described as being anti-Semitic. That is a disgrace and a slander and it has been a slander against Ireland, against individuals, including myself, people who for example who have worked all their lives in relation to human rights activity," President Higgins said.
