{"id":191782,"date":"2026-07-05T23:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T23:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/191782\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T23:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T23:53:08","slug":"some-lebanese-christian-villages-asked-to-be-annexed-by-israel-netanyahu-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/191782\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Lebanese Christian villages \u2018asked to be annexed\u2019 by Israel, Netanyahu says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that some Christian villages in southern Lebanon had asked to be annexed by Israel so that they could be protected from Hezbollah militants.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Lebanon was drawn into the wider war in the Middle East on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran\u2019s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, where its troops now occupy territory near the border.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cChristian villages in Lebanon, some of them have actually asked to be annexed to Israel, because we protect them against the Hezbollah, Hezbollah fanatics who want to kill them, and we do the same things with Christians everywhere,\u201d Netanyahu told Fox News programme The Sunday Briefing.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Netanyahu did not name the Christian villages he said had made such a request.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The mayor of the Christian village of Rmeish, Hanna al-Amil, was quoted by Lebanese public broadcaster NNA as denying Netanyahu\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that some Christian villages in southern Lebanon had asked to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[2747,44322,41,38,105,100,34,37,2412,5401,93,49,44320,15109,1705],"class_list":["post-191782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-axios","tag-beaufort-castle","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-fox-news","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israeli","tag-lebanese","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-nna","tag-rmeish","tag-washington"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116870067101155862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}