The President, Mrs McAleese, has expressed her wish to see the implementation of the UN resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the portion of south Lebanon it has held since invading the country in 1982.
She was speaking at a ceremony held in her honour by the people of the mainly Muslim village of Tibnin in south Lebanon where the Irish UN Battalion has its headquarters.
The meeting was attended by several hundred local people who gave the President a warm welcome. An address by a local figure, the Muktar of Tibnin, thanked Ireland for the contribution its troops had made to peacekeeping in the area and asked the President to request the implementation of UN Resolution 425 which calls on Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon.
"We look forward to the day when the UN Resolution will be fully implemented and Lebanon will enjoy lasting peace. We hope that this day may not be in the too distant future."
Israel continues to maintain its nine-mile-wide buffer zone beyond its northern border in order, it has said, to stop attacks on northern Israeli settlements by Islamic militias. It has the support of the mainly Christian South Lebanon Army which operates in the buffer zone.
The Lebanese government is keen to improve diplomatic relations with the Republic, and it was reported here this week that the President would be asked to set up an embassy. She said yesterday this was not within her presidential functions.
Just before she arrived by helicopter in the Irish Battalion headquarters yesterday a single shell round was heard impacting to the west. It emerged later that the shell was fired from an Israeli position about 10 miles away, apparently at a target just outside the Irish Battalion area. The shell is thought to have exploded about four miles from the Irish headquarters.
The Israelis warned by radio that it was firing at a target just outside the Irish area.
At about the same time four mortar shells were also fired from the same Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) position, but these landed as much as 10 miles away.
Such action in a single day in south Lebanon is regarded as very low-key. The Irish Battalion area's "alert status" remained as "normal" throughout yesterday. It was also accepted by UN sources that there was no intent by the Israelis or their allied militia, the SLA, to fire into the Irish area or to interfere with the presidential visit.
Mrs McAleese's visit, which took her through some of the most persistently troubled parts of south lebanon, passed off without incident.
Her tour of the battalion area began with a visit to the Irish-held observation post on the edge of the Israeli Controlled Area (ICA) known as Hill 880 (named simply because it is on the peak of a hill 880 metres above sea level).
For this visit the President and her entourage had to wear body armour and were issued with helmets. The President travelled in a "soft-skinned" four-wheel-drive vehicle to the post normally visited only in armoured cars during times of tension.
She shook hands with the platoon in the post and was taken to a look-out position and given a briefing on the surrounding military positions and villages.
The post is only a kilometre from an SLA compound which regularly comes under attack from Islamic militia belonging to the Hizbullah party.
Later she was taken to the company headquarters in the Battalion area, met more troops and performed a number of opening ceremonies.
In the afternoon she was given a formal reception by the people of Tibnin in their new community hall, filled in traditional Muslim fashion with men occupying most of the seats and women and children sitting at the sides and back.
The ceremony was a moment of interest in the area where there has been an Irish UN presence for 20 years during which close cordial relations have been established with the local community. Mrs McAleese said yesterday she hopes to return to visit the troops in south Lebanon during her Presidency.
Many local dignitaries, including the MP for Tyre, Mr Ali Kalil, an important figure in the Lebanese parliament, representing the Amal leader, Mr Nabi Berri, who comes from Tibnin, attended the ceremony. A local boy scout band gave the President an enthusiastic and loud trumpet fanfare and she was presented with flowers on her arrival.
A banner in Arabic script above the entrance welcomed her as the "President of the country whose soldiers' blood has mixed with the blood of Lebanese people and watered the soil of south Lebanon."
There were a number of speeches in Irish and Arabic. The President spoke of the links that had grown between the peoples of Lebanon and Ireland because of the service of the thousands of Irish troops in Lebanon since 1978. She also spoke of the 38 soldiers who had died, 14 on active service, while serving in south Lebanon.
She said: "Many Irish soldiers have died here in the cause of peace in Lebanon. My visit here today is a tribute to the sacrifice which they and their families have made."