An armoured patrol of troops led by a 26-year-old lieutenant from Galway yesterday achieved the historic honour of being the first Irish troops to patrol in south Lebanon right up to and along the 1949 Armistice Line, the international border between Israel and Lebanon.
At around 11 a.m. local time (9 a.m. Irish) Lieut Peter Norton of the 1st Cavalry Squadron briefed his crews at the Battalion Mobile Reserve (BMR) base at Al Yatoun less than a mile from the Irish Battalion headquarters in Tibnin.
He appraised them of the route and schedule and quizzed them about responses to a variety of dangerous situations. The rules of engagement, when the soldiers could open fire were gone over in depth.
Yesterday's patrol was as heavily armed as the Irish Battalion can be. The two lumbering Sizu armoured personnel carriers (APCs) each had three mounted medium machineguns. Inside there were anti-tank weapons and a fourth machinegun.
A light armoured car, an AML 90, based on a post-second World War design by the French, led the APCs. Although regarded as something of an antique by other forces here, the AML 90 is well thought of by the Irish for its speed, versatility and relatively great firepower. Amused Israeli armoured crews referred to it as the Irish Battalion's "little white tank".
The Irish, Finnish, Ghanaian, Indian, Fijian and Nepalese battalions that make up the bulk of the UNIFIL force here yesterday all pushed up to the Israeli border. The battalions began reconnaissance missions a few kilometres into the former "Israeli Controlled Area" (ICA) on Tuesday after a column of Lebanese civilians burst through checkpoints near the Irish Battalion on Tuesday morning precipitating the collapse of the occupying forces.
The area formerly occupied by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and its proxy local militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), is now being referred to here as Free South Lebanon. The Lebanese government's declaration of yesterday as a national holiday to mark the Israeli withdrawal was marked by a second day of mass invasion by cars, vans, buses and motorcycles from Beirut into the newly liberated territory.
On Tuesday an Irish Battalion patrol of two unarmoured "soft skin" all-terrain vehicles travelled about 3 km into the area to the crossroads at Saff al Haya. That patrol was led by Lieut Laura Humphreys from Cork. On Wednesday an armoured patrol entered two kilometres further to the Christian village of Ayn Ibil.
Yesterday Lieut Norton led his patrol across the former demarcation line at At Tiri to Shalabun crossroads through Ayn Ibil to the villages of Rumayah and Yarun, seven miles into the former zone and within a kilometre of the "Good Fence", the heavily fortified international border between the two countries. The patrol took five hours to complete its journey in an eastward loop through Bint Jubayal, Blida, Meiss ei Jebel though Houleh and back to the Irish headquarters just beyond the 11th century castle at Tibnin.
The festive mood of recent days still held. At Ayn Ibil men handed cans of cold soft drinks to passing cars. The village is predominantly Christian in an area that is mainly Muslim and the inhabitants have good reason to wish to be amenable to the visitors flocking through their town after the perceived victory of the Islamic militants of Hizbullah.
Lieut Norton's men responded in kind to the waves of the local inhabitants and to the jubilant, cheering Muslim families returning to homes they had been forced from a generation ago.
The first full patrol of the extended area of operations of the Irish Battalion went without hitch. Only the heavy traffic hindered its progress. The only thing thrown at it was rice from some of the Muslim villages.
The UN is still uncertain about its future role here now that its main Security Council mandate of an Israeli withdrawal has been met. Mr Timor Goksel, spokesman for UNIFIL for almost its entire existence, said last evening that all the battalions had patrolled up to the border and there had been no incidents. The patrols had been to "reassure the people that we are still there to care for them and to prepare for the future whatever that brings".
The "future" would be determined, at least partly by the visit of the UN Secretary General's special representative in the Middle East who is meeting all sides in the conflict including, crucially, the Syrian government, which has maintained a force of possibly 30,000 troops in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in the late 1980s.
Mr Goksel did not think there would be a rapid UN withdrawal now that the main mandate term has been met. He agreed that the area was quiet and that there was "some jubilation".
"Yes," he said, "I am very encouraged but what you see could be very misleading."