At the Irish United Nations soldier Sean Rooney's memorial service, just before his body was transported through Rafik Hariri International Airport to rest in his home country, the space for stalling the investigation began to narrow. Pressure is widening to push the authority to uncover the truth about the crime and to hold perpetrators accountable.
The authority's call for intensification of efforts to detect the circumstances is no longer beneficial in the light of the unfolding reports and hard facts documenting the causes of the crime and intent of "deliberate homicide," in particular through an apparent deliberate direct firing at the UN vehicle resulting in the death of Rooney as a result of being shot in the head.
In this context, reliable sources of the "Nida Al Watan" revealed that a Lebanese security report documented that the UNIFIL vehicle targeted in the Al-Aqibya incident had been hit by 27 gunshots from several sides, according to security experts, "the incident is not spontaneous, and no decision had been taken by relevant authorities in the region to control the situation immediately after the start of the incident."
Based on the data and evidence contained in the report, Lebanese officials have reached out to Hezbollah leadership to emphasize that "the issue has become embarrassing" before the United Nations and the international community and that a "suitable way out" must be found urgently, especially because an Irish commission is now following up on the local and international investigations.
Sources disclosed the efforts of a senior security official in "Hezbollah," who held a face-to-face meeting with UNIFIL to find the most appropriate formula for ending the case.
During a Zoom meeting, Hezbollah's security official reaffirmed that the party is keen on the relationship with UNIFIL and has nothing to do with what happened in Al-Aqibya. The answer from UNIFIL was brief: "If you are not directly responsible for the incident, you are responsible for aggravating the people's negative attitudes towards us in the south."
In the meantime, three messages emerged yesterday from Bkerki, the contents of which intersected at a focal point, stressing that legitimacy must address the practices of "de facto forces" in various areas and fields, presidential, security, and regional.
In the first message, the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai stressed the infringements on the properties in Rmeich by "elements of a party's de facto forces in the region," inviting the security services to do their duty "to evacuate alien elements from the town and put an end to all encroachments, so that the people of Rmeich feel that they belong to a state that protects them." The Maronite Patriarch was referring to the encroachment by Hezbollah members of the "Green without Borders" Association on some of the border properties belonging to the people of Rmeich and camping forcibly therein on the pretext of security and strategic reasons for their presence in the area adjacent to the border.
In the second message, Rai attacked what he called the disruptive forces stalling the presidential election "for political and sectarian purposes as well as seeking to dismantle the state and institutions," stressing that the election of a President of the Republic that protects Lebanon and who does not align himself with the regional powers.
Regarding the crime of the Al-Aqibya incident, in which "an Irish soldier was killed by a bullet after coming to Lebanon to protect the peace of the South," the Maronite Patriarch asserted that "this tragic incident that distorts Lebanon's face requires a transparent Lebanese and international investigation that reveals the truth and conducts justice," and added: "the time has come for the state takes control of illegitimate weaponry.
"The state needs to apply resolution 1701 because its application to date is selective, arbitrary, and constrained by the decision of the de facto forces," Rai concluded.