Germany will keep supporting Lebanon after UN peacekeepers leave, the German president says

BEIRUT (AP) — Germany moved to assure Lebanon on Monday that it will support the Lebanese government even after pulling out German troops deployed as part of U.N. peacekeepers along the Lebanon-Israel border when their mission ends later this year.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier made the announcement during a news conference at the presidential palace near Beirut. Germany’s navy, he said, is already training Lebanese troops as they boost their presence in the country’s south following the 14-month war between Israel and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.

The mission of the multinational U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, concludes at the end of 2026, nearly five decades after it was deployed. The force has played a significant role in monitoring the security situation in the region, including during the Israel-Hezbollah war last year.

Over the past months, Beirut has said that Lebanon will need a follow-up force to fill the vacuum in southern Lebanon once the U.N. peacekeepers leave.

“After the end of UNIFIL’s mission, Germany will stay by the side of your country to boost state authority,” Steinmeier said, without elaborating. It remains unlikely German troops — tasked with preventing arms smuggling by sea and helping the Lebanese army monitor the country’s sea border — would remain in Lebanon.

UNIFIL currently numbers about 7,500 peacekeepers, including 179 Germans.

“The Lebanese armed Forces are, of course, the backbone of stability in Lebanon and this means that after UNIFIL’s mission we have to think how to strengthen” the army, Steinmeier said.

Steinmeier added that the process of disarming Hezbollah — which was part of a November 2024 U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the fighting — should move ahead and that Israel should fully withdraw from Lebanese territory.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Lebanon paid a high price for the Hezbollah-Israel war, which Hezbollah started by firing rockets into Israel a day after the militant Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the war in Gaza.

Israel expanded its attacks that included bombardment and a ground operation in September 2024, severely weakening Hezbollah.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion in damage and destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.

“We were forced to live through violent conflicts we did not choose and we bore their burdens. We are no longer able to do so,” Aoun said of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Aoun also said he had asked Steinmeier to have Germany assume a “main role” after UNIFL, without elaborating what that would entail, and to also ask Israel to abide by the ceasefire and withdraw from Lebanon. He made no mention of Hezbollah’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.