In a tower high above his battle-scarred hilltop base, a United Nations peacekeeper from India keeps watch along the Lebanese border. An Israeli fortress bristling with antennas looms before him metres away across the frontier.
The men of the 28-year-old United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) continue observing, patrolling and delivering humanitarian assistance in south Lebanon while they wait for reinforcements to help enforce a ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah Shi’ite militia.
”The role has not changed. It has become more intense,” says Major Saurabh Pandey, public relations officer for Unifil’s Indian battalion.
”We continue to observe and report.”
About 650 soldiers from India’s Fourth Battalion, Sikh Regiment, along with a battalion from Ghana, make up the bulk of Unifil’s nearly 2 000 troops.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended 34 days of fighting that left much of south Lebanon in ruins, Unifil is to receive additional personnel and an enlarged mandate.
”It will be for the benefit of Lebanon,” says Pandey (34).
Up to 7 000 additional soldiers from Europe, chiefly Italy and France, are expected to be on the ground quickly, backed by naval and air power. In the meantime, it is up to the lightly armed troops from India and Ghana to monitor the shaky truce.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was to visit the headquarters of the French-led Unifil mission in the coastal town of Naqura on Tuesday as he completed a two-day visit to Lebanon.
In his office at the Indian battalion headquarters on a windblown hilltop near the town of Marjaayun, Pandey opens his desk drawer and says he often refers to Resolution 1701.
But much remains uncertain about the existing battalions’ role in the reinforced peacekeeping mission.
”We are still awaiting orders from the Unifil,” says Pandey, whose battalion arrived eight months ago for a mission scheduled to end in December.
Asked what advice he would give the soldiers who are coming, Pandey says: ”Whatever the mandate requires to be done has to be done sincerely. That is the most important thing.”
Pandey says his biggest concern since the ceasefire took effect two weeks ago has been the provision of humanitarian aid.
Two mobile medical teams travel the villages to treat shrapnel wounds, and care for those suffering from trauma or disease.
There is even an army veterinarian who looks after wounded and traumatised animals.
”If their animals are happy, the people are happy,” Pandey says.
”We are also providing water, about 40 000 to 50 000 litres on a daily basis to the people.”
In Ghana’s sector on Monday, troops blew up seven 155mm artillery shells found among the rubble of the destroyed town of Bent Jbeil. Ordnance disposal is also part of the humanitarian effort, said an officer who would not give his name.
The aid mission operates in tandem with Unifil’s patrol and observation mandate.
Pandey says the number of observation posts has roughly doubled since the ceasefire.
Many posts are simply two soldiers and a UN pick-up truck beside the road.
The post on a hilltop overlooking Israel near Houla, in south-eastern Lebanon, is larger and was established five years ago. It hosts a company of about 30 soldiers.
Only a wall of concrete slabs about 3m high separates the UN compound from the Israeli bunker that looms over it, resembling a warship stuck on a cliff. Covered in grey cement, it is surrounded by fencing that marks the border and is topped with camouflaged netting and antennas.
Nobody is visible but UN personnel approaching the Israeli compound carry a large blue flag to make sure they are seen.
On the UN side, Pandey says two observers are always stationed in the watchtower. They stayed there even when Israeli tank rounds struck the compound during the war.
Other peacekeepers sheltered in a bunker built of breeze block, sandbags and crushed rock that was partially torn away by a shell that landed nearby. The trailer-like mess hall and living quarters were peppered with shrapnel.
”We had two other posts, which were hit by rockets from Hezbollah,” Pandey says.
Men from his battalion had to recover the bodies of four unarmed UN observers killed in what Annan called an apparently deliberate strike on their post near the town of Khiam. Israel said it would conduct an inquiry.
”In the darkness we tried to shout and call out” hoping the men were still alive, Pandey recalls. ”The whole night we dug, with bare hands sometimes.”
In the long history of Unifil, many peacekeepers have died, and their names fill a plaque in the southern city of Tyre.
A sign at the Houla base lists the alert level as yellow, a notch lower than red during the war.
”After things become normal then it becomes green,” Pandey says, describing the current situation as fluid.
Under Resolution 1701, Unifil is to accompany and support Lebanon’s army as it spreads out in south Lebanon and along the border as Israeli troops withdraw.
That appeared to be happening Monday.
Near Kfar Kila within sight of the Israeli town of Metulla, Lebanese soldiers with two armoured personnel carriers were stationed about 500m from a long-abandoned border crossing. Two Unifil soldiers manned an observation post across the road from the Lebanese.
Some Israeli troops remain on the Lebanese side of the border pending the arrival of Unifil reinforcements in the south. A Lebanese military official said on Sunday that Israeli troops still occupied nine positions inside the country.
Israeli tanks were visible on Monday behind a house inside Lebanese territory below the UN’s base near Houla. The house was fortified with sandbags, but nobody could be seen.
Further south, the crumbled village of Maroun er Ras was frighteningly empty, except for Ghanaian soldiers with M-16 rifles sheltering in the remains of a mosque.
”The road is not safe. I just received a message from my commander,” said one of them, adjusting his blue helmet. — AFP
