Early in the morning of what would be one of the most intense days in eight months of hostilities between the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbulá and the Israeli forces, a patrol of Spanish blue helmets receives the warning that a level 2 alert has been activated.

As mandated by the protocol, the group immediately goes to the position of the nearest UN peace mission in Lebanon (FINUL), something that they have to do quite often in the midst of the escalation that since October has hit their area of operations in the south of the Mediterranean country.

Another Spanish patrol arrives to take refuge at the same base, less than two kilometers from the border with Israel, where the hours go by while from the heliport you can observe in the distance the smoke of some impact on the mountain.

From time to time, you can hear the buzzing of the drones or a few distant explosions. “Another greeting,” jokes one of the military.

Well into the afternoon, eight hours after its activation, the alert that weighed on the entire East sector is lifted and the blue helmets can finally leave the facilities to continue their activities.

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According to them, it was by far the most prolonged alert of that type since they arrived in Lebanon last month, when the last rotation of Spanish troops took place.

During the wait on Wednesday morning, the Israeli Army announced the arrival of at least 160 rockets to different parts of the north of the country, including the Lower Galilee region, further from the common border where its crossfire with Hizbulah is usually concentrated.

And in the previous hours the Shiite formation had lost an important commander, his loss of higher rank since the beginning of the clashes, which led him to launch a total of 19 attacks throughout the day, many of them of great magnitude, as confirmed in a series of statements.

The head of one of the Spanish patrols that took refuge at the base, Lieutenant Jesús Sánchez Burgos, explained to EFE that the frequency of the alerts does not follow any specific pattern and that “it depends on the day.”

“When we go on patrol we have (…) our area of responsibility divided into security zones, and they activate them depending on the probability of impact on those areas. When it touches level 2 or level 3, we have to welcome the nearest position,” he said.

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“In this case, we were on patrol, they have touched level two and we have had to accept position 966, the position of the Serbs,” added the section chief.

Each patrol consists of two vehicles with a boss, driver, shooter and operator in each of them, which try to ensure compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbulah.

“Our mission here is to monitor the cessation of hostilities between the two States, support the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and we are patrolling for that (…) But the situation right now is a little complicated, so that surveillance of that cessation is a little more complicated,” Sánchez acknowledged.

Before the alert was activated, the group that EFE joined was able to develop part of its patrol through the de facto divide between the two countries, also passing through ghost towns dotted with destroyed houses or businesses, and mountains of debris, such as Kafr Kila.

In other areas of the Spanish area of operations, such as the so-called “Christian corredor”, life “is normal” and a good part of the population continues in the area despite the outsping of violence, the lieutenant explained.

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In southern Lebanon, about 700 Spanish soldiers are deployed, the vast majority in this contingent part of the Eastern sector, with a total of 3,500 blue helmets of different nationalities.

Its spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel José Irisarri Antón, told EFE that the forces keep a count of the security incidents, recording the type of projectile, the weapon used and the estimate of the damage caused.

But he recalled that the main objective of the patrols is to comply with resolution 1701, that is, “to try that there are no militias or armed personnel in the area that does not belong to the Lebanese Armed Forces,” in his words.

In this sense, the lieutenant colonel stressed that, in fact, they try to make about 25% of their patrols joint with the troops of Lebanon.

“In case we locate something that may involve a missile or mortar launch point, the LAF is informed, they are responsible for controlling that there is nothing and if there is something to seize it, and then destroy it,” he concluded.

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