Seven people charged for their alleged involvement in the death of a UNIFIL ‘blue helmet’ in Lebanon

Jan. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A Lebanese military court charged seven people on Thursday for their alleged involvement in an attack carried out in December against a convoy of the United Nations Interim Force for Lebanon (UNIFIL) that resulted in the death of an Irish ‘blue helmet’ .

Judicial sources quoted by the Lebanese newspaper ‘L’Orient le Jour’ have detailed that a total of seven projectiles passed through the UNIFIL vehicle, attacked in the surroundings of the town of Al Aqbiya when it was heading to the capital, Beirut.

The Shiite party-militia Hezbollah, which controls these areas in the south of the country, has denied any role in the event, although sources quoted by this outlet have pointed out that two members of the group were implicated in the attack. Hezbollah handed over a suspect to Lebanese authorities on December 25.

Lebanon’s acting prime minister, Nayib Mikati, has vowed to “punish” those responsible for the attack. “The environment in which international soldiers work is good and investigations into the death of the Irish soldier continue,” he said in mid-December.

UNIFIL was deployed to the country in 1978 and restored after the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which lasted just over a month and killed 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 UNIFIL itself. Likewise, it contemplates the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, which implies Hezbollah, and that there are no other armed forces outside those of UNIFIL and Lebanon south of the Litani river, which implies both Israel and the party- Lebanese militia.