An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir March 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 18 | remember calling an IDF Officer that day and he said, 'look, we've hit them once, they hit us back. If we go to step number three, nobody knows where this will end'. So Israel stepped on the brakes and you can see that pattern time after time, which means that neither side is willing to risk so much and get entangled into a war. Another example was when Israel discovered and destroyed six tunnels that Hezbollah dug into Israeli territory. The IDF took care not to cross the border one inch when destroying the tunnels and Hezbollah pulled away from the area to avoid any direct confrontation. I think this tells us quite a lot about the situation. Having said that, there is always the possibility of a series of miscalculations where we misread the other side and they misinterpret what we're about to do and then you can easily slide into a war. This is what happened in 2006. Nasrallah himself later admitted that he did not intend for a war to start when he ordered the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and he did not expect Israel to react as it did. So I think this remains the situation today." WHAT IS YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE SECURITY SITUATION IN THE UNIFIL AO AND WHAT IS THE LIKELIHOOD OF CON- FLICT IN THE UNIFIL AREA OF OPERATIONS? "If conflict escalates, if it erupts, this will probably mean a full scale war and this would include the UNIFIL area. This would be the battlefield, southern Lebanon, more or less the area where UNIFIL has a mandate. Let's be very clear, if something happens it will erupt on the border and the initial part of the war will be fought in Southern Lebanon, in the exact specific areas where your soldiers are serving. For your soldiers, this would mostly involve withdrawing or staying away to avoid becoming caught between the two sides. Right now, as with the tunnels, we see all sides treading very lightly, in order not to cause any unnecessary escalation. But there are tensions. And there are tensions between Israel and UNIFIL, which have to do with the searching of private prem- ises. I interviewed General Michael Beary at that time and this was our discussion. There was quite a lot of frustration from the Israeli side, expecting UNIFIL to do more because from their point of view, it was very clear that it is Hezbollah behind the scenes, it is Hezbollah calling the shots, it is Hezbollah disguis- ing as private citizens, while everybody knows and perhaps UNIFIL as well is turning a blind eye to Hezbollah's presence and their weapons depots and military action. This is the cur- rent reality there and its quite frustrating from the Israeli side. This is one of the reasons why Israel keeps raising this mat- ter. Every now and then you see Israel publishing informa- tion and giving briefings to the foreign media about specific towns or villages where Hezbollah has secret compounds. This is fighting the propaganda war but it doesn't mean that its untrue. I think most of the information Israel is presenting is actually accurate." DOES SOME OF THIS FRUSTRATION RESULT FROM THE CUR- RENT MANDATE FOR UNIFIL? "While I'm not an expert on the mandate, I think that Israelis would like UNIFIL to be physically more assertive and initiating more searches, perhaps having the mandate changed in order for UNIFIL to have more power to restrict Hezbollah action along the border. It is very clear that Hezbollah are active. We receive briefings where they show us films of Hezbollah men in plain clothes, Hezbollah men walking almost hand in hand with LAF patrols and this is both frustrating and potentially dangerous from the Israeli point of view."

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