Germany and the Netherlands followed Canada in urging their citizens to leave Lebanon, fearing that an all-out war could break out with Israel.
“German citizens are urgently requested to leave Lebanon,” the country’s embassy in Lebanon warned on its website. It noted that air traffic might be halted in such a situation, and if so, it may not be possible to leave.
Third Lebanon War
The United States worked Wednesday to prevent a Third Lebanon War as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington.
“What we’re trying to do is prevent a second front from opening up,” US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Gallant on Wednesday to discuss the issue, after speaking Tuesday with US Secretary of State Lloyd Austin. Sullivan affirmed the US’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, including in the face of threats from Iranian-backed terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah,” his office said.
The two men discussed “ongoing US efforts to support de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing hostilities in Lebanon that would ensure the return of both Israeli and Lebanese families to their homes in the border region,” his office added.
Gallant’s office said they also discussed “the important cooperation between Israel and the United States vis-a-vis Iranian aggression and its nuclear ambitions.”
Concern is high that the IDF-Hezbollah war that began after the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, which has focused on cross-border violence, will escalate and lead to a regional war that would actively include Iran.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Israel on Monday and Beirut on Tuesday in an effort to understand and describe the situation. “With every rocket across the Blue Line between [Lebanon and Israel], the danger grows that a miscalculation could trigger a hot war from one moment to the next. All who bear responsibility must exercise extreme restraint,” she wrote on X from Beirut.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said his country stood in solidarity with Lebanon amid growing tensions with Israel and, on Wednesday, called on regional countries to support Beirut.
In a speech to his AK Party’s lawmakers in parliament, Erdogan claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning to spread the Gaza war throughout the region.”It seems that Israel has now turned its eyes on Lebanon after destroying and burning Gaza. We see Western countries giving Israel support behind the scenes,” Erdogan said.
“Netanyahu’s plans to spread the war to the region will lead to a big catastrophe,” he said, adding that Western support for Israel was “pitiful”.
“Turkey stands with the brotherly people and state of Lebanon. I call on other countries in the region to stand in solidarity with Lebanon,” he stated.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz retorted in a post on X that Erdogan “is a war criminal who slaughters innocent Kurds across the Syrian border and tries to deny Israel its right to self-defense against a terror organization attacking from Lebanon under Iran’s orders.”
Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, commenting on the tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, said the Turkish government saw a risk of the conflict spreading.
When asked about Hezbollah’s threat to Cyprus, the EU member state in closest proximity to Lebanon, Fidan called on Cyprus to “stay away” from the conflict.
Turkey’s intelligence reports showed Cyprus had become a base for “certain countries’” military and reconnaissance flights over Gaza, Fidan said in an interview with private Haberturk television.
Cyprus has said it is “in no way involved” in the conflict. It has lobbied its EU partners to offer Lebanon financial assistance and recently set up a maritime corridor to dispatch humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Reuters contributed to this report.