The thud of a rocket landing sounded nearby, but Warrant Officer II Maxwell Kyei-Mensah of the Ghanaian Battalion of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) did not flinch.
“We should keep moving,” the 47-year-old shouted across the tarmac of a forward operating base in southern Lebanon on the front line of Israel’s worsening conflict with Hezbollah, the Shia militant and political group. “We don’t want to get stuck in the bunkers all day.”
The Ghanaians have been part of the UN peacekeeping force in the area since the 1970s. Since the end of the last war between Israel and Lebanon, in 2006, the level of violence around the “Blue Line”, the heavily militarised border, has ebbed and flowed.
But the security situation in southern Lebanon changed dramatically on October 8, one day after the Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis and ignited a war in which more than 37,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Gaza ministry of health.
Hoping to ease the pressure on Hamas, its fellow Iranian proxy group, Hezbollah opened up another front by firing rockets and drones at military bases in northern Israel. In response, Israel began targeting villages and towns in southern Lebanon from which it believes the group is firing rockets.
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It has also carried out a campaign of targeted assassinations, killing 352 fighters in the process, according to Hezbollah. The attacks from southern Lebanon have killed 15 Israeli soldiers.
According to the International Organisation of Migration, 95,000 residents of southern Lebanon have been displaced by the fighting and 60,000 Israelis who left their homes in the north are unable to return. Ten Israeli civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks, while 191 Lebanese civilians have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
A steady stream of funerals is stoking a bellicose mood on the ground in the villages of southern Lebanon. A desire to avoid being dragged into war has morphed into anger. At the funeral of Sally Skayki, a nurse in her early twenties, a chant of “Death to Israel” could be heard between bursts of machinegun fire into the air.
Videos have emerged online of the Israeli military spraying gasoline over the border before igniting it to clear shrubland. They claim the vegetation conceals Hezbollah rocket launch sites. Lebanese olive farmers stand on the side of the road staring in disbelief as their businesses go up in flames.
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The Ghanaians’ base on the Blue Line is just a couple of miles away from the Lebanese town of Ayta Ash Shab, now mostly reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes.
The peacekeepers spend most of their time underground to stay safe. “We have been in bunkers a lot!” said Captain Grant Asmah, 31. Is it boring? “Yes, perhaps. It’s a new thing and out of our hands. We are adjusting to the security situation.”
When not sheltering from the rockets, the Ghanaians continue to patrol the empty villages of southern Lebanon. They report every attack and air space violation they witness to the UN security council.
Binyamin Netanyahu’s political survival may now partly depend on whether he can end Hezbollah’s attacks, as well as finding a successful exit from the war in Gaza. During a visit last week to the 55th Brigade in northern Israel, the prime minister reiterated his stance: “Here as well, we will achieve victory, nothing less.”
In Washington, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, warned that Israel could “take Lebanon back to the Stone Age”, but added: “We don’t want to do it.” This prompted Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian affairs co-ordinator, to describe a wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as “potentially apocalyptic”.
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• Roger Boyes: War with Hezbollah would test Israel’s limits
Hezbollah is a much more formidable military adversary than Hamas, with greater resources.
Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s secretary-general, has stated that it has no appetite for all-out conflict with Israel but that if it is forced into one, there will be “no limitations, no rules and no ceilings”.
As peacekeepers on the front line of a potential war that most of the rest of the world is striving to avoid, what does Unifil do if the fight intensifies?
“We have two scenarios,” said Lieutenant Betty Asantewaa Darko, before leaving the base in UN-marked armoured personnel carriers (APCs). “If we have 30 minutes’ notice to abandon position, we grab a ‘go bag’, our rifles and our flak jackets. If we have 72 hours, there are designated people to burn documents.” The battalion rehearses the procedures twice a week.
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As the APCs thundered down the empty roads of southern Lebanon, flashes of bright pink bougainvillea framed flattened homes. Abandoned pets rummaged amid the scorched earth.
Passing buildings that now resemble stacked pancakes, Darko lamented the experience of the past eight months of her first foreign tour. “A lot changed after October 8. We can’t do local engagements with civilians. I miss that,” she said. Her ambitions in Lebanon have simplified. “We just want to calm the women and children with our patrols.”
The Ghanaian Battalion has been patrolling southern Lebanon since the peacekeeping force’s inception in 1978. Days after a protest by the Lebanese government to the UN security council against the Israeli invasion in March of that year, the council adopted resolutions 425 and 426, ordering Israel to cease its military campaign and withdraw its forces from all Lebanese territory. The first United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon arrived that month, commanded by a Ghanaian.
Today, there are 876 soldiers from Ghana on the ground in Lebanon, making it one of the largest contingents. It also has the largest number of female soldiers, at 20 per cent. “Ghanaian peacekeepers are always the best because we have so much exposure,” said Warrant Officer Kyei-Mensah, beaming. “We like to bring peace.”
Despite their largely serene disposition, the Ghanaian Battalion has suffered in the conflict. Many of their bases sit between villages that have been struck repeatedly, such as Alma El Chaab, Yarine and Ayta Ash Shab. The troops’ positions have been hit ten times. Three Ghanaian soldiers have been injured, one of them badly.
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One of the most serious incidents happened near the village of Marwahin. “Armed elements infiltrated a building next to our base,” said Asmah, pointing out the ruins of a family home almost attached to the peacekeepers’ facility. “They fired rockets towards Israel. Israel fired back at the building.”
The strike sent hot metal flying through the soldier’s sleeping quarters. Standing in those quarters now, the captain put his fist into one of the cavities left by the debris. Someone had scrawled “Welcome to Gaza City” in permanent pen on the wall next to it.
Naval Lieutenant and Medic Grace Aidoo, 37, became solemn as she talked about the psychological impact of the past eight months.
“There have been bombs flying, soldiers being hit,” she said. “Some of the battalion are suffering from PTSD.”
The volume of cross-border strikes rose sharply after Israel assassinated a Hezbollah commander, Taleb Sami Abdullah, on June 12. All-out war feels ever closer.
Peacekeepers are never deployed to peaceful zones, but Unifil’s presence is clearly not a deterrent to either side now. Kyei-Mensah’s frustration was apparent as the APCs made their final stop in the area headquarters.
“We can’t stop Hezbollah and Israel from firing rockets,” he said. “If I talk to you and you don’t listen, what can I do?”
