{"id":45276,"date":"2026-04-09T01:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T01:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45276"},"modified":"2026-04-09T01:27:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T01:27:25","slug":"deeply-concerned-australia-says-lebanon-should-be-included-in-middle-east-ceasefire-australian-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45276","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Deeply concerned\u2019 Australia says Lebanon should be included in Middle East ceasefire | Australian foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Australia says Lebanon<\/a> must be included in the Middle East ceasefire and has led a group of other countries in expressing deep concern about \u201cthe worsening humanitarian situation and displacement crisis in Lebanon\u201d.<\/p>\n

Overnight, Israel carried out its largest attack on Lebanon since its war with Hezbollah began, killing at least 254 people and wounding 837<\/a>, an assault that prompted Iranian officials to warn Tehran could withdraw from the ceasefire agreed with the US this week.<\/p>\n

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In the statement<\/a>, released in the early hours of Thursday, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, alongside counterparts from Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Jordan, Sierra Leone and the UK, said: \u201cAttacks that threaten the safety and security of humanitarian personnel must stop. International humanitarian law must be upheld by all parties to the conflict in all circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe condemn in the strongest terms actions that have killed UN peacekeepers and significantly increased the risks faced by humanitarian personnel in southern Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/span><\/a><\/figure>\n

The office of Israel\u2019s prime minister said the two-week ceasefire deal did not include Lebanon, contrary to a statement made by mediator Pakistan \u2013 while Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was \u201ca separate skirmish\u201d and not part of the deal.<\/p>\n

Speaking to ABC\u2019s RN Breakfast on Thursday about the new joint statement, Wong said Australia had \u201ccalled for the ceasefire to apply to Lebanon and for both Hezbollah and Israel to observe the ceasefire\u201d.<\/p>\n

If fighting continued in Lebanon, she said, \u201cit risks the whole ceasefire across the region\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we called for that last night. We\u2019ve been joined overnight by the G7 and other countries saying the same thing, and we continue to assert that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if she had been in touch with her Israeli counterpart or if the ambassador here had presented that point of view from Australia, Wong replied: \u201cNot in the last 12 hours, but I\u2019ve said that publicly, and there\u2019s a very pragmatic reason for that \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want the ceasefire to hold. We know it\u2019s fragile. We know what it means for the world, and we know what it means for Australians at the petrol bowser.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, said the Coalition was concerned about the reports of mass civilian deaths in Lebanon, but that<\/p>\n

he sided with the US and Israel\u2019s position that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is our closest and most important military ally and they have publicly said that the ceasefire did not include Lebanon,\u201d he told RN Breakfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst their claims are the claims of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which not only sponsored terrorist attacks against Australia but has murdered tens of thousands of their own citizens in the last few months alone, has an illegal nuclear weapons program and sponsors other terrorist organisations around the world including Hezbollah and Hamas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if asked to take the side of either the United States or the Islamic Republic of Iran regime, it\u2019s an easy choice for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia says Lebanon must be included in the Middle East ceasefire and has led a group of other countries in expressing deep concern about \u201cthe worsening…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}