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Germany will keep arming Israel despite an international backlash over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offensive in Gaza, said Berlin’s foreign minister.
Hosting his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar in Berlin, Johann Wadephul said he was deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but rowed back on previous suggestions that Germany would review its arms deliveries to Israel.
“Israel must be able to defend itself against this violence,” he told a press conference, referring to military threats against Israel from Hamas, Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Houthi militants in Yemen.
“That is why, of course, Germany will continue to support Israel by supplying weapons. That was never in doubt.’’
Netanyahu has faced growing international pressure over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The UK, France and Canada last month warned of ‘‘concrete actions”, while Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Israeli army’s actions could “no longer be justified”.
Spain this week began cancelling licences for Israeli defence companies supplying the Spanish armed forces “with the aim of achieving technological independence from Israel”.
Germany, which sees staunch support for Israel as part of its historical responsibility for the Holocaust, has found itself in a bind as Merz warned that violations of international law were taking place.
Wadephul caused unease within his party last week by suggesting that there would be a review of German arms deliveries to Israel, which have totalled close to €500mn since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war.
He has since appeared to backtrack, while stressing the need for more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza. The UN has warned that the entire population of Gaza is at risk of famine, with Israel restricting most aid from entering the enclave since March.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the group behind a controversial new US and Israeli-backed aid scheme, said on Thursday that it had reopened its food distribution sites after a chaotic start.
Gaza’s health ministry has accused Israeli soldiers of killing dozens of Palestinians as they sought to reach aid distribution sites in recent days.
The Israeli military denied shooting at Palestinian civilians “while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site” on Sunday, but said its soldiers had opened fire on Monday and Tuesday towards people who it claimed “posed a threat” to them.
GHF said on Tuesday that it was aware of the reports of casualties earlier that day but said they had occurred in “an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area”.
The killings have sparked international outrage, with UN officials demanding an investigation, and UN human rights commissioner Volker Türk denouncing the attacks as “unconscionable”.
“Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime,” he said on Tuesday.
Until Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza in March, aid deliveries to the enclave’s 2.1mn population were led by the UN, which delivered them to people in multiple locations across the territory.
Under the new distribution model, Gazans must travel — often for long distances on foot — to receive boxed meals from distribution hubs secured by US private security contractors and the Israeli military.
Israel says the system is designed to prevent aid falling into the hands of Hamas.
But the UN and other aid groups say they have seen no large-scale diversion of aid and have accused Israel of using the new system to exploit the desperation of starving Palestinians to displace them to southern Gaza.
Additional reporting by Barney Jopson in Madrid
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