According to German media, the German armed forces are fully prepared for a massive operation to remove German citizens from the Middle East at any time.

A400M transport aircraft as well as German soldiers at the Wunstorf military base in Lower Saxony are already on full alert to provide military assistance in the removal of German citizens from the Middle East.

The news was first reported by the German news agency dpa and is reproduced today in the German press, as well as the exclusive information of the magazine Der Spiegel, according to which the possible removal operations of the Bundeswehr, i.e. the German armed forces, will mainly concern flights from Lebanon to Cyprus.

These operations, if the civilian evacuation plan is activated in the event of large-scale Iranian retaliation against Israel, include the German frigate Hamburg, which is currently located south of Greece, although it is normally earmarked for operations against the Houthi rebels in Red Sea.

Mass cancellations of flights to the Middle East

According to dpa, which cites information from the German Foreign Office, they have so far been added to the special lists of the German Foreign Office approximately 2,100 German nationals living in Lebanon. For its part, Spiegel, citing intelligence sources, reports that Iran could launch its attack on Israel this week with Hezbollah playing a key role, which could also carry out massive attacks from Lebanon.

At the same time the German airline Lufthansa extends flight cancellations to Tel Aviv, Beirut and Tehran until August 12. At the same time, flights to Amman, Jordan and to Erbil, Iraq are frozen until August 8. All Lufthansa group airlines, including Austrian Airlines and Swiss, will also avoid flights over Iranian and Iraqi airspace until August 7.

Jewish Council: Military support to Israel

In the midst of this difficult summer with fears of a generalized conflict in the Middle East rising day by day, the German government is calling on all sides in the Middle East region to avoid escalation.

According to a representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reported by the tagesschau.de website, the German government is in contact with all its interlocutors in the “at all levels” area. Berlin is calling on everyone to exercise “restraint” while monitoring developments in the region with “great concern,” deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Buchner said.

And while everything is on a tightrope in the Middle East, the Central Jewish Council, through its head Joseph Schuster, asks the German armed forces to support Israel militarily, emphasizing Germany’s special historical responsibility. However, as German media point out, this would not be possible without a relevant decision of the federal parliament.

The position of the Central Jewish Council seems to be shared by the German government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, Felix Klein, as well as top officials of the Christian Democrats from the official opposition. The head of the defense committee of the German parliament Markus Faber from the Liberals said that at this stage Germany could support Israel by speeding up licenses for arms exports.

However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius of the Social Democrats recently made it clear that a possible military involvement of the Bundeswehr in the region is currently out of the question.