When the UNIFIL peacekeeping force, intended as a buffer between Israel and militant Islamist groups in Lebanon, was first deployed in 1978, soldiers slept in tents, built makeshift observation posts and dug trenches for protection against artillery fire.

The UNIFIL headquarters, on the Mediterranean coast a few miles north of the Israeli border, gradually grew into a sprawl of temporary, prefabricated cabins.

There were very few home comforts for the first generation of Irish soldiers there.

Those deployed in the Irish Battalion area west of Naqoura lived in rough conditions. They gradually acquired cabins and built messes for themselves from locally-obtained materials.

The first Irish Battalion headquarters was a collection of temporary buildings. They were easily disassembled four years ago and the land has now returned to its original use as an olive grove.

The Irish occupy a proper barracks of concrete buildings on a more advantageous site about a quarter of a mile away.

Young soldiers serving in Lebanon for the first time can enjoy satellite television and reasonably comfortable conditions.

In Naqoura, the small community of Irish officers has just built a smart new restroom with a cool marbled floor and vaulted ceiling, to counter the effects of the stifling summer heat.

New, bigger and stronger UN posts are springing up around the entire area.

Veterans of previous tours in Lebanon say there has been a huge increase in paperwork, which they see as an indication that UNIFIL is settling into bureaucracy.

States such as France, Sweden and Norway, which contributed heavily to the original force, have largely withdrawn.

Two years ago there was talk of reducing the force annually by 10 per cent until it is closed down - as happened with the other UN force in Angola only last week.

But Mr Timor Goksell, the veteran UNIFIL spokesman, says reduction is not an option for UNIFIL. The present strength of 4,500 troops will remain.

"There is no reduction, maybe some reshuffling. In this area you cannot afford to rock the boat. I don't think anybody will touch UNIFIL," he said.

And, after a week in which the region seemed again poised to descend into war after Israel lost its most senior officer in Lebanon, events seem to support Mr Goksell's view.

There seem to be conscious efforts to put new life into UNIFIL. Three months ago an Indian infantry battalion joined the force, replacing Norwegians.

UNIFIL sources say the Indians have been an injection of fresh life. They have approached the job with impressive professionalism, sending in large advance teams and immediately installing two doctors and a vet, whose sole job is to help the local population.

The Indians have an army with a tradition of professionalism and were among the few contingents in the multinational UN force in Somalia considered to have acquitted themselves well.

They have also brought with them to Lebanon their traditions of highly colourful military bands and parading.

The Irish battalion, which holds the key central sector in UNIFIL, has benefited greatly from the injection of new recruits into the Defence Forces, according to Army sources. About one-third of the strength of the current battalion comes from young soldiers who joined the Army only in the past two years. They are said to be enjoying soldiering in the mountains.

Yet despite the infusion of new blood, few UNIFIL veterans see any chance of UNIFIL ever forcing Israel to agree to the UN resolutions calling for its withdrawal from south Lebanon.

The Israeli-occupied land, which it terms its "security zone", has decayed dramatically, while there has been massive economic expansion in the rest of Lebanon.

While the Israelis have held the land and its population hostage and used it as a base to mount retaliatory attacks into Lebanon, the area is dying.

According to UNIFIL, what it terms the Israeli-controlled area (ICA) has now lost most of its Christian population, from which the Israelis derived their main local support in the shape of the South Lebanon Army (SLA).

The ICA's population of around 200,000 is increasingly Shi'ite Muslim and Druze. The Christians who had money have fled.

As economic activity virtually ends in the ICA, its adult population has only migrant menial work in Israel.

There is now forced recruitment into the SLA, which subsidises itself by imposing "customs taxes" on the migrant workers as they return daily from their jobs in Israel.

The workers look abject as they pass through the security gates going back to their homes each evening.

The only other significant employer in the ICA is UNIFIL itself.

There has been piecemeal investment in health and education, and in road-building, by both the Lebanese and Israeli governments, which are vying for the support of the local people. But this has not visibly helped the area.

Donkeys are still widely used in farming and, in places, the landscape looks as though little has changed since Biblical times.

The UN now sees that the increasingly desperate population of this small, forgotten piece of land may still make the greatest contribution to a final Israeli withdrawal.

The Israelis have had to recruit young men into the SLA from the local Shi'ite population. They are co-religionists of the Hizbullah fighters who continually harass and embarrass the mighty Israeli army. There have been substantial SLA defections to Hizbullah.

As Mr Goksell observes: "They are recruiting from the Shi'ites now and their devotion to the cause is a bit suspect, to say the least."

The SLA defectors have included some very senior intelligence officers who disappeared and are believed to have helped the Hizbullah with highly valuable information in return for safe passage for their families out of the occupied zone.

UN sources say it was undoubtedly good intelligence from these defectors which contributed to the last two weeks of Hizbullah operations, which led to the death of seven Israeli soldiers.

They included the Israeli army's most senior officer in the region, Brig Gen Erez Gerstein.

Yet peace is probably a long way off and there is no sign of a wider settlement between Israel and Syria over the disputed Golan Heights.

Yesterday Israeli jets again flew northwards over the UNIFIL forces to strike Hizbullah targets in the Beka'a valley. There was also a heightened state of alert in the Nepalese UNIFIL zone adjoining the Irish area.