Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (not pictured) in Beirut on June 25, 2024. (Photo: AFP)
Berlin, June 28 (RHC)-- Germany has voiced deep concern over potential further escalation along Lebanon's southern border, where the resistance movement Hezbollah is engaged in intense clashes with Israel.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk public radio that “another war would mean a regional escalation on a scale we can hardly imagine.” The top German diplomat said there was a need for global powers to mediate a decrease in tensions in the region.
“More rockets are flying, large parts on both sides do not want this war, but we are slipping into it.”
Baerbock called for an “urgently needed” ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip. “This will also calm the northern front.”
During her one-day visit to Beirut, Baerbock warned Tuesday that a “miscalculation” could trigger a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese Hezbollah resistance fighters have conducted a series of strikes against Israeli sites in the northern part of the 1948 occupied territories in response to the brutal aggression against Gaza.
Global pressure grows on Germany and the United States to stop arms transfers to Israel.
Israel has killed more than 37,700 Palestinians in Gaza since early October.
The United States, Israel’s staunch ally, has claimed it was urgently working towards a diplomatic agreement that would deescalate tensions at the Lebanese border, but at the same time, it reassured its “ironclad" commitment to Tel Aviv.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that “no place” in the Israeli-occupied territories would be spared from the group’s weapons in the event of a full-blown war. Nasrallah said an incursion into the Galilee region remains an option on the table should Israel invade southern Lebanon.
Nasrallah also said Hezbollah would attack any other country in the region that assisted Israel in the war effort, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training.
