{"id":530616,"date":"2026-07-08T04:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530616\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:06:20","slug":"lebanon-must-remove-hezbollah-threat-from-south-german-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530616\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon must remove Hezbollah threat from south: German minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJERUSALEM: Germany\u2019s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Lebanese authorities to confront Hezbollah and reassert state control over the country\u2019s south, where the militant group has been engaged in hostilities with Israeli forces.
During a visit to Jerusalem, Johann Wadephul, who backed Israel\u2019s ground invasion of southern Lebanon earlier this year, also praised the US-brokered agreement between Israel and Lebanon, pledging Germany\u2019s support for what he described as a \u201chistoric\u201d initiative.
\u201cWhat is crucial is that Lebanon now needs determination on its side, to assert itself and ensure that Hezbollah no longer actually exercises control in southern Lebanon,\u201d Wadephul said at a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart.
Lebanon must \u201cin particular ensure that no danger whatsoever to Israel emanates from Lebanese territory,\u201d he said.
Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2, when it fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli airstrikes.
Israel has since carried out a massive campaign of strikes and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon that have killed more than 4,300 people in Lebanon, while occupying a large swathe of the country\u2019s south.
The Israeli military has also reported deaths of 38 soldiers in the campaign and a civilian contractor.
Wadephul welcomed the ongoing US-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon, which are due to resume in Rome next week, and pledged European and German support for the dialogue.
\u201cThe agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon is a glimmer of hope for people on both sides of the border, who are jointly suffering under Hezbollah\u2019s terror,\u201d he said.
\u201cIt has so far been underestimated what a historic step it is that Israel and Lebanon are now conducting these negotiations with each other.
\u201cI believe that if this path can be supported by Europeans, then Israel and Lebanon can count on German support there at any time,\u201d he added.
Wadephul also touched upon the situation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
\u201cIn the West Bank, Palestinians need a perspective for a political and economic future,\u201d he said.
He urged Israel to release tax and customs revenues it has been withholding from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to prevent its collapse.
\u201cThe PA is not perfect. It urgently needs to be reformed. But weakening the PA does not serve Israel\u2019s security; rather, it can create a vacuum that other, more radical forces could fill,\u201d he said.
Wadephul warned that Israel\u2019s continued settlement expansion was undermining prospects for peace.
\u201cThat is why we view continued settlement construction with great concern,\u201d he said.
\u201cA de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank cannot be accepted internationally, and Germany cannot see how it would be legal.\u201d
Tuesday\u2019s meeting between the two diplomats was the ninth such encounter over the past year, and it saw the signing of an agreement under which Germany will provide annual financial support of 5 million euros by 2030 to Jerusalem\u2019s Yad Vashem center for Holocaust research, documentation, education, and remembrance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM: Germany\u2019s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Lebanese authorities to confront Hezbollah and reassert state control over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-530616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}