Beirut/Amman/Tel Aviv, Oct. 19, (dpa/GNA) – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius both arrived in the Middle East on Thursday, as Germany’s government continued crisis diplomacy efforts amid the war in Gaza.
Both Pistorius and Baerbock plan to meet with high-level Israeli leaders in an effort to show the German government’s unwavering support for Israel in the wake of bloody attacks and massacres carried out by the Islamist militant group Hamas.
Baerbock said she also hopes to press for the release of hostages being held by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. German citizens are among the roughly 200 captives being held by the group in Gaza.
On Thursday, Pistorius visited German soldiers deployed to Lebanon as part of the United Nations UNIFIL peacekeeping mission before flying onward to Tel Aviv, where he met Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to discuss military cooperation and aid.
Baerbock, meanwhile, spent Thursday in Amman, where she met the commissioner-general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, to discuss the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Before departing for Jordan on Thursday, Baerbock assured Israel of the German government’s “unbreakable solidarity.”
“The fight is with Hamas, not with the Palestinian civilian population,” which is also suffering enormously, Baerbock said.
Israel has cut off food, water and electricity for the densely populated coastal strip, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Israeli forces have also pounded Gaza with repeated airstrikes that have levelled buildings and killed thousands of people, most of them civilians.
Baerbock on Thursday appointed a special envoy for humanitarian aid issues in the Middle East to coordinate support for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
She said that Germany’s government is working intensively to find ways for German citizens to leave Gaza as quickly as possible. The Foreign Office believes that well more than 100 German citizens are in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.
Baerbock was also scheduled to meet Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Thursday while in Amman.
Baerbock is scheduled to travel to Tel Aviv on Friday to meet Israeli opposition politician Benny Gantz, who has taken a post in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity war cabinet.
The visit is Baerbock’s second trip to Israel in the last week.
She is then scheduled to travel onward to Lebanon, where she is expected to press Lebanese political leaders to exert influence on the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah to avoid an all-out conflict with Israel.
Hezbollah is considered far more powerful than the Palestinian militant group Hamas, with better training for its fighters and a large arsenal of missiles and combat drones.
Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel in recent days, and Israel has responded with artillery and airstrikes. But there is concern that the conflict could escalate into a major conflict.
Israel’s war in Gaza came in response to a bloodbath in Israel unleashed by Hamas with coordinated attacks on October 7. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, the vast majority of them civilians, in what has been described as the worst catastrophe in the country’s history.
GNA