At 11:15 PM on Wednesday, two international vehicles took a secondary road between the towns of Sarafand and Al-Aqibya towards Sidon and from there towards Beirut. The two cars were carrying eight soldiers from the Irish battalion.
A group of young men in that area chased the two cars under the pretext that they took a road that international forces do not usually travel. According to these young men, the road was cut off for the two cars, which led to a fight between the international soldiers and the group that intercepted them. One of the cars tried to escape but it was subject to gunfire, thus it crashed into a shop wall and overturned.
It turned out that four soldiers inside had been wounded, two of them seriously, and two had minor wounds. They were taken to a hospital in Sidon; one died upon arrival at the hospital as a bullet struck his head straight in, while the other seriously wounded soldier also underwent surgery.
On its Twitter account, the Irish army indicated that the soldiers were subjected to small arms fire.
For its part, UNIFIL confirmed the death of one soldier and the wounding of three and that an investigation had been launched in cooperation with the Lebanese army to uncover the circumstances of what happened.
Hezbollah's Coordination and Liaison Unit Official Wafiq Safa called on not involving his party in the incident.
He demanded that the security services be allowed to investigate the incident, revealing that one car belonging to the Irish force entered a road unfamiliar to cross by UNIFIL. In contrast, the second car took the usual international highway and did not encounter any issues. Safa offered condolences to the UNIFIL forces for the soldier's death, wishing recovery for the injured in the unintended accident, as he said.
This incident of intercepting UNIFIL forces is not the first of its kind. Still, it is the first outside the scope of UNIFIL's area of operation, and for the first time, there are casualties in an accident of this kind. It must be noted that the recent renewal of the UNIFIL mandate raised questions for Hezbollah in terms of granting more movement to these forces from outside the context of coordination with the Lebanese army. Still, UNIFIL confirms that all their steps are coordinated with the military.
The Al-Aqibya incident sparked widespread condemnation from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and many political forces and personalities, most of which called for an investigation and accountability for those involved. The army also offered condolences from UNIFIL and the Irish government.