Germany on Wednesday denied reports it had frozen all new exports of offensive weapons to Israel in response to legal challenges regarding its support for the Jewish state.
“There is no ban on arms exports to Israel, and there will be no ban,” a spokesman for Germany’s Economic Ministry told news agency DPA.
The spokesman said Berlin decides on arms exports on a case-by-case basis, taking into account international law and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier Wednesday, a Reuters source close to Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs cited a senior German official as saying that the government had ceased approving arms export permits after cases were filed at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the Administrative Court of Berlin.
In its legal defenses, Berlin told the courts that no “weapons of war” have been exported to Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border terrorist massacre, except for spares for long-term contracts, the source claimed.
In 2023, Germany authorized weapons exports to the Jewish state worth 326.5 million euros ($363.7 million), according to official data from the country’s Economic Affairs Ministry, which approves the permits. However, in the first eight months of this year, approvals dropped sharply, with only 14.5 million euros ($16.1 million) worth granted until Aug. 21, Reuters said.
Of this, offensive weapons exports accounted for only 32,449 euros (approximately $36,000) of the total amount, the news agency added.
On April 30, the U.N. world court in The Hague ruled against Nicaragua’s request that it order Germany to immediately halt arms sales to Israel. The ICJ judges argued that the circumstances presented to the court didn’t justify the exercise of its power to impose interim measures.
The justices, however, refused Berlin’s request to dismiss the case, finding that “there being no manifest lack of jurisdiction, it cannot accede to Germany’s request to remove the case from the Court’s docket.” Nicaragua’s case could take years to move through the court.
Germany is considered an important ally of Israel, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz making solidarity visits after the Oct. 7 attacks and intervening on behalf of Jerusalem at the ICJ in January to refute allegations of genocide during the war against Hamas lodged by South Africa.
However, during a March visit to Jerusalem, Scholz questioned the “high costs” of the Israel Defense Forces campaign against Hamas, saying that “the longer the war lasts, the higher the number of civilian casualties rises, the more desperate the situation of the people in Gaza becomes.”
Scholz also called on Israel to agree to a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria led by Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority. “Terror cannot be defeated with military means alone. We need a solution to this conflict that ensures sustainable, lasting security,” he said.
In May, Scholz’s spokesperson announced that Berlin would detain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“Of course. Yes, we abide by the law,” said spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
Netanyahu has denounced the ICC prosecutor’s attempts to have him arrested as an “unprecedented antisemitic hate crime.”
