The exchanges of rocket attacks in northern Israel and southern Lebanon in recent days, along with Israel's retaliatory attacks on Lebanese targets, are a sharp reminder of a conflict which could rapidly escalate. News that the Lebanese army was involved in the shelling is disturbing. Unifil forces, including the Irish Battalion, have been put on alert and the five power committee, agreed in April last year, has been endeavouring to prevent a deterioration. Casualties in the attacks are the worst since the Qana massacre during the ill-fated Operation Grapes of Wrath launched by Mr Shimon Peres last year before he lost the Israeli general election. They began when a suspected Hizbollah bomb killed two children of a prominent South Lebanon Army (SLA) commander. In retaliation, the SLA launched rockets into the centre of the port city of Sidon. It operates as a proxy militia for the Israelis and is armed, directed and financed by them. Hizbollah directed Katyusha rockets at the towns of Marjayoun and Jezzine within the Israeli-occupied area and then at northern Israeli towns. The Lebanese army fire was also directed at SLA positions. The ingredients of renewed conflict are all there, if not restrained by political will. In acknowledgement of these dangers, the Israeli prime minister, Mr Netanyahu, while warning that Israel would respond severely, also spoke of the immediate need to "halt the cycle of escalation".
Given the involvement of the US mediator, Mr Dennis Ross, in trying to keep the five power committee together - not to mention his larger role in the Middle East peace process - Mr Netanyahu is understandably cautious about further escalating the conflict. Wednesday's retaliatory attacks were seen by the Israelis as warning shots, but they drew harsh and deserved criticism from regional and international partners in the Middle East peace process. To continue with them would associate Israel more closely with the SLA actions than is officially admitted. It would also put Israel offside in what is currently a subordinate part of the faltering peace process, in which relations with the Palestinian leadership have top priority.
Mr Netanyahu insists that Syria controls the Hizbollah forces and that Damascus must make up its mind whether it wants a peace with Israel. In that case, he says, there would be no more point in Israel occupying part of southern Lebanon. But if he wants peace with Syria he will have to address the fundamental question of Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights, which he is increasingly reluctant to do. So far as the Lebanese government is concerned, Israel should withdraw from its territory forthwith, a position supported by international opinion and the governments supplying Unifil troops, Ireland included. Given the volatility of events in the region, it is essential that any threatened escalation be faced down.
This is another reminder of Unifil's important role. Ireland's participation in the force has become part of the State's security and foreign policy furniture. There are signs of fatigue in the numbers volunteering for service there, and an impatience among Army personnel to be more involved in more relevant peacekeeping roles, particularly in Europe. But the need for Unifil is underlined by these events.