Irish FM says Israel trying to 'drive eyes and ears out of south Lebanon'

Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.

Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”

“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.

“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.

Martin added that “Israel is essentially now undermining (not only) the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules based international order, and it needs to step back.”

He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what’s right and proper and moral in terms of humanity.”

The European Union on Monday condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected Israeli allegations that the U.N. was keeping them there to obstruct military operations against Hezbollah.

Five peacekeepers have been wounded in Israeli attacks that struck their positions since Israel began a ground campaign against Hezbollah. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”

- Germany calls on Israel to investigate peacekeepers shelling -

The German government has sharply criticized the shelling of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, calling on Israel to clarify what exactly happened.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told reporters in Berlin on Monday that “all parties to the conflict, including the Israeli army, are obliged to direct their combat operations exclusively against military targets of the other party to the conflict.” Spokesman Sebastian Fischer said that a comprehensive investigation is expected and that talks on the matter were being held with the Israeli side.

The situation in southern Lebanon is causing growing concern, Fischer added, saying that “the shelling of U.N. peacekeepers and the intrusion into their bases is in no way acceptable,” and that the protection and security of U.N. troops had top priority.