Irish soldiers send defiant message ahead of Lebanon deployment as violence flares
Irish soldiers about to be deployed to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon have said they are not afraid as they prepare to travel to a region of high tensions.Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has flared in recent days as fears grow that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could disrupt other areas across the Middle East.The 123rd battalion will see 334 Irish personnel and nine people from Malta deployed to the United Nation Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) next month.At the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow on Thursday, Defence Forces soldiers carried out a military training exercise which included the testing of heat-seeking Javelin missiles.The commanding officer of the 123rd battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Mac Eoin, said his colleagues in Lebanon have described the current conditions as “tense”, but said the soldiers were “ready to go and do their job”.SOURCE: PA
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00:49 So our operations are essentially to support the government of Lebanon by patrolling alongside the Lebanese Armed Forces and sometimes without the Lebanese Armed Forces.
01:01 We call those framework operations and that allows us to get out on the ground and then we have a number of internal operations in terms of our own defense.
01:10 And in the scenario whereby we do have exchanges of fire, our troops are trained to respond to get into very well protected positions.
01:19 But I do want to emphasize the fact, apart from the training, we do have good equipment and I think crucially actually our culture is right.
01:27 We have a really strong culture and I suppose we see ourselves as professional soldiers, which we are,
01:32 and the teamwork and the team of teams that we have within the battalion is ultimately what's going to get us through the harder parts.