Germany
“I think we should celebrate visibly and publicly, without fear,” Marco Schouwenaar told JNS. “But it’s making my wife uneasy, and I’m going to follow her lead here.”
Following a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, the European leader said his country “will stand by your side in friendship.”
The two leaders will then hold a joint press conference.
At the handover ceremony, Defense Ministry D-G Baram, whose parents survived the Holocaust, commented on the symbolism of the $3.5 billion deal.
At an estimated value of $3.5 billion, the deal with Germany, signed on Sept. 28, 2023, is the largest of its kind in Israel’s history.
“Germans committed terrible crimes in Guernica,” the German president said.
Prosecutors say the 19-year-old suspect targeted Jews in an ISIS-inspired attack that left a Spanish tourist gravely wounded.
Israeli intelligence and European partners thwarted multiple Hamas terror cells targeting Jewish and Israeli sites, uncovering weapons and arresting operatives.
One of the groups, based in Greece, reportedly said it had carried out a bombing in solidarity with “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance.”
“The government welcomes the ceasefire in Gaza,” a government spokesman said.
Gideon Sa’ar cited Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen as examples of why a Palestinian state would threaten Israel’s security.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.
