Lebanese villagers look to UN

By Jon Leyne
BBC News, Marwahin, southern Lebanon

Some 250 UN troops have been killed in Lebanon since 1978

At UN position 1-21 they are used to being caught in the crossfire.

From the watchtower you can almost shout across to Israel a few hundred metres away.

The same distance the other side of the base is a Lebanese village suspected by the Israelis of being a Hezbollah stronghold.

In between are 23 Ghanaian United Nations peacekeepers living in neat white cabins complete with a well-kept garden.

They stayed throughout the recent fighting providing what help they could to local civilians.

The commander took pictures on his own camera of Israeli tanks rumbling past the front gate. There are still fresh tank tracks on the dirt road down to the Israeli border.

Peacekeepers here also watched as Hezbollah rockets were fired towards Israel from the ridge behind the base.

Destruction everywhere

Some shells even landed inside the compound and although they did not take any casualties at this base this time around, the UN force in Lebanon, Unifil, has lost 248 soldiers killed since it was set up in 1978.

Marwahin was badly hit by the war

This is not somewhere to send peacekeepers unless they know exactly what is their mandate and how they are going to protect themselves.

That is something that will be high on the minds of the governments of France and other European countries as they commit fresh troops to bolster the force.

To reach position 1-21 outside the village of Marwahin you wind up through the hills of southern Lebanon. Downed power cables criss-cross the roads. There are scenes of destruction everywhere.

On one ruined building the whole top floor tipped over after a bomb hit a lower storey. It is still intact, leaning at 45 degrees, presumably with the furniture all inside. A satellite dish still survives on the roof.

On the ground floor of another ruined shell, the whole family were sitting impassively, apparently in exactly the same place when we drove past in the morning and again after dark the same day.

In some villages wandering animals are virtually the only sign of life.

Israel attacked these villages believing they harboured Hezbollah fighters or their weapons, though aid workers and human rights activists accuse the Israelis of deliberately sabotaging the infrastructure.

Israeli tanks still patrol the area.

Israel has said it will not complete its withdrawal until the UN deploys more of the 15,000 peacekeepers mandated in Resolution 1701, passed two weeks ago.

'Protect us'

For many local people, that cannot come a day too soon.

"People here want the UN troops to come. Whether they're American or French it doesn't matter," said one villager.

"We just want the UN force because they can protect us from the Israelis. The Israelis are still here during the night. We can't leave our houses because the Israelis are still here."

Spending a day beside position 1-21 you begin to understand the sense of reassurance provided by the UN.

From New York or London it is easy enough to mock the powerlessness of the peacekeepers, but in these dangerous hills you feel just that little bit safer with the blue flag of the UN flying nearby.