Zibqin is a small Shia village in the hills of South Lebanon, two kilometers from the Blue Line. In November 2007, it became home to Base "Rugge" — forward operating base of the Reggimento Savoia Cavalleria, Italian Battalion 2 of UNIFIL's Sector West.
Sixteen months had passed since the 2006 war. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 had expanded UNIFIL's mandate dramatically, bringing thousands of additional troops into South Lebanon — many of them quartered directly inside the villages they were tasked with stabilizing. The proximity was by design.
This project documents that proximity. Soldiers on patrol through narrow streets. Children on their way home from school. A village carrying the memory of a recent war, and the foreign troops who had become part of its daily life — however temporarily, however strangely. Between vigilance and routine. Between a soldier far from home and a place that had become, quietly, familiar.
