German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is seen at an EU meeting. Photo: Reuters/Gregor Fischer

Germany’s foreign minister will arrive on Sunday on her fourth visit to the Jewish state since the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7 took the lives of more than 1,200 people, with over 200 seized as hostages amid widespread atrocities.

Annalena Baerbock is scheduled to meet with her counterpart, newly-appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, as well as President Isaac Herzog. She will subsequently travel to Ramallah in the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and from there to Egypt and Lebanon.

On Friday, Baerbock told reporters that her visit would center on three main concerns.

“The Gaza Strip should no longer pose a terrorist threat to Israel in the future,” she emphasized. “At the same time, Palestinians must not be expelled from Gaza; there must be no [Israeli] reoccupation of Gaza or a reduction in the [size of the] territory.” She then added that the German government “is working with all its might for a negotiated two-state solution, even if it is now a long way off.”

Separately on Friday, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry warned “that the risk of escalation [on the Israel-Lebanon border] is unfortunately very real.” Clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah terrorists backed by Iran have intensified over the last week.

The concern was voiced two days after Germany issued a formal warning to its citizens not to travel to Lebanon because of security fears.

“A further aggravation of the situation and expansion of the conflict cannot be ruled out, especially in view of the killing of the deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh Al-Arouri, in the Beirut area on Jan. 2, 2024,” a statement on the foreign ministry’s website said.

“All German citizens who are still in Lebanon are asked to register on the ELEFAND crisis preparedness list and to leave the country as quickly as possible,” it emphasized.