The President, Mrs McAleese, yesterday completed her visit to Irish troops serving in Lebanon amid signs of growing tension in the border area between Lebanon and Israel.
The de facto ceasefire in the countryside around the area guarded by the Irish UN troops during her two-day visit is not expected to hold for long, according to UN sources. There is an increasingly widely-held view that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) is losing its grip on the nine-mile strip of southern Lebanon it has held since 1982.
UN sources here report that the IDF is no longer confident of the support of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) which has traditionally backed the Israeli intervention in the area. It is said the IDF is worried that SLA members are giving information and help to the Muslim militias who are fighting for Israel's withdrawal.
The IDF has removed mobile telephones from SLA figures and carried out searches of houses in villages which were previously regarded as strongly supportive of the Israeli presence, apparently because it suspects local SLA figures are colluding with anti-Israeli elements.
Another destabilising factor is said to be increasing competition between the two main Muslim militias, Islamic Resistance, the military wing of the Hizbollah movement, and the military wing of the Amal political party.
The Hizbollah military wing has grown in strength and is expected to mount substantial attacks on the Israeli forces occupying the nine-mile buffer zone inside southern Lebanon. This group has attacked and destroyed at least three Israeli main battle tanks and killed up to 40 IDF members this year. It is said to be one of the most lethal military elements in the Middle East.
The Hizbollah has recently proposed the setting up of a Lebanese Brigade, a new militia which any Lebanese person - including any Lebanese member of the SLA - could join. This is seen as an attempt to attract SLA members to turn against Israel. There is said to be evidence already that this may be effective.
South Lebanon was relatively quiet during the President's visit. One Hizbollah member was killed in a confrontation about 40 km from the Irish Battalion area, and a shell fired by the IDA landed in the Irish area.
Hizbollah was also responsible for bombing a UN observation post erected to overlook a deep wadi which Hizbollah uses to fire mortars at IDF positions. Local people had previously blamed the IDF for this.
The President completed her trip to the Irish Battalion area on Saturday by laying a wreath at a cenotaph erected to the memory of Irish troops who have died while on service with the UN in Lebanon.
She then flew by helicopter for a meeting with Lebanon's President Elias Hrawi, during which President Hrawi said the sacrifices made by Irish soldiers in UNIFIL were well appreciated by the Lebanese people.
He asked that Mrs McAleese do whatever she could to ensure that diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Ireland were established on a formal footing.
Mrs McAleese, in reply, said she looked forward to the "further development of our relations in the comes years, at the cultural and social level as well as at the political and economic".
She added: "The people of Ireland also have a historical respect for the rights of the Lebanese people to their territorial integrity and to a future where the relevant UN resolutions are respected and the people of the region can live together in neighbourly harmony."
Mrs McAleese later attended a dinner hosted by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She flew home to Ireland yesterday.