The Lebanese army has arrested six people after gunmen attacked UN peacekeepers patrolling in the south of the country, the military has said.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), had reported that six men riding on three mopeds opened fire on a patrol vehicle on Thursday without injuring anyone.
“All our personnel are well and accounted for,” a Defence Forces spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the 127th Infantry Battalion, which is part UNIFIL in the south of the country, “initiated immediate action drills” after it came under fire.
The Defence Forces said the battalion’s actions and the armoured vehicles they were in “ensured the safety of all troops”.
It added that the battalion returned to Camp Shamrock following the patrol.
The Lebanese Army, meanwhile, said its army’s intelligence directorate had followed up on the attack and arrested six Lebanese suspects.
The army said it would not tolerate attacks on UNIFIL, which it said carries out an important stabilising role south of the Litani river, near the Israeli border.
UNIFIL said the peacekeepers were on patrol when they were approached by six men on three mopeds at 6pm yesterday near Bint Jbeil.
The Irish Defence Forces said all its personnel are well and accounted for following the attack (file image)
One of the men, it said, fired “approximately three shots into the back of the vehicle”.
Both UNIFIL and Defence Forces condemned the incident.
UNIFIL is Ireland’s longest peacekeeping mission.
UNIFIL peacekeepers have been tasked with acting as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon since March 1978, and with monitoring the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
The truce was supposed to see Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon and refrain from attacks while the Iran-backed group is disarmed.
But Hezbollah is resisting those efforts, and in recent weeks Israel has stepped up its ongoing strikes, accusing the group of trying to build its forces.
UNIFIL has also recently complained of Israeli forces firing at or near its peacekeepers.
On Wednesday, direct discussions were held for the first time in decades between Israeli and Lebanese civilian officials under the auspices of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism.