Palestinian refugee who cried before Merkel gets residency permit

A Palestinian teen threatened with deportation who burst into tears during a televised debate with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has got a residency permit for "humanitarian reasons," a statement said Friday.

In the encounter in July, 14-year-old Reem told Merkel in fluent German that she and her family, who arrived in the north German city of Rostock from a Lebanese refugee camp four years ago, faced possible deportation.

Merkel at the time expressed sympathy before defending her government's asylum policies, saying Germany "couldn't manage" to shoulder the burden of all those fleeing war and poverty.

Minutes later, Reem began to weep and the chancellor stroked her head and tried to comfort her in a way critics said appeared awkward and cold, and which led to a storm of protest on social media.

The Rostock City Hall said in a statement that Reem and her family "had today received for the first time residency permits for humanitarian reasons".

"These permits are valid until March 2016," it said.

Germany now says it is likely to take 800,000 refugees this year.