Germany defends Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon

By Oliver Towfigh

BERLIN (AA) - Germany on Monday backed Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, saying it had “the right to self-defense.”

“At the weekend we had a threat of escalation, above all from Hezbollah, which had already made massive threats in advance and then proceeded with rockets and shelling of Israel. In fact, in light of this threat, the Israeli government exercised self-defense and carried out an operation in southern Lebanon,” deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner told journalists in Berlin.

He said that Germany views these tensions in the region with “great concern” and urged all regional actors to “exercise restraint.”

On Sunday, Israeli warplanes launched over 40 airstrikes on southern Lebanon, the most severe attack since cross-border attacks between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah began on Oct. 8, 2023. The Israeli army claimed that the attacks aimed to prevent a rocket barrage by Hezbollah.

The Lebanese group, for its part, said that it had launched hundreds of rockets and missiles deep into Israel as the “first phase” of its response to last month’s assassination of its senior commander Fouad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut.

Since Oct. 8, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been engaged in daily exchanges of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border, resulting in hundreds of casualties, mostly on the Lebanese side.

The escalation comes against the backdrop of a brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which killed over 40,300 Palestinians since last Oct. 7 after a Hamas attack. The military campaign has reduced much of the territory to rubble and left most of the people homeless, hungry and prone to disease.