Earlier this morning I was speaking to Maltese military officers about Camp Shamrock where 9 Maltese members of the Armed Forces of Malta are stationed with around 340 Irish soldiers as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. This below is Camp Shamrock. Battles between the IDF and Hezbollah are ongoing next to Camp Shamrock. You can see it marked in the map as HQ Ireland/Poland. The United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon are currently involved in civil work including protecting medical convoys from the IDF and repairing civilian infrastructure.
Here is some latest footage and photography from the camp.
The Camp has an extension which is a border post where thirty of its members are stationed including the Maltese contingent from the Armed Forces. The border post is stationed around 4km away from the main base (Camp Shamrock). The Israeli Defence Force have surrounded the outpost with their military vehicles in what military officers have described to me as a move to deliberately use the outpost as a human shield. The main base is marked in the map as UN 2-45 while the outpost is marked as UN 6-52. You cal also see the UN 6-52 on the map above along the blue border line.
The satellite image clearly shows the outpost surrounded by the IDF military vehicles apart from being surrounded by their road works. The IDF also seems to make it clear that it wants to stop Camp Shamrock and its outpost from operating. The Irish government refused a request by the Israeli government to dismantle Camp Shamrock. The IDF is fighting Hezbollah near the Camp.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has various peacekeeping mission bases in Lebanon but Camp Shamrock is the first target by the IDF. It is the closest one to the Israeli border, and the IDF hasn’t arrived near the other UN bases so far.
The Maltese military officers I spoke to earlier this morning suspect that the Israeli Defence Force are deliberately harassing the Irish and Maltese peacekeepers due to Ireland’s and Malta’s well known pro-Palestine stance and their support for the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution.
The Maltese government has also expressed its concerns about the safety of Maltese troops to the Israeli government and is constantly moniterign the situation.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply