Germany has approved $102 million in arms sales to Israel since August, officials in Berlin revealed on Thursday.
The German Foreign Ministry announced the figures after a far-left lawmaker in the country’s federal parliament sought clarification regarding recent reports that Germany was holding up arms exports to the Jewish state, according to the DPA news agency.
The numbers show that German arms shipments vastly increased in 2023 ($352 million) over 2022 ($35 million). They then decreased drastically in 2024 ($48 million prior to August), still a high figure compared to previous years.
The authorization of another $102 million in exports brings the 2024 figure to roughly half that of the previous year.
In 2015, Germany supplied more than $500 million in arms exports to Israel, the highest figure in recent years, according to a report from April by the Berlin-based Forensis nonprofit.
The DPA report did not say whether Israel had expressed interest in purchasing more arms from Germany this year or the previous one.
Israel has been receiving vast amounts of weapons from the United States and other allies amid its year-long conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran and its other proxies.
Although Germany did not join the United Kingdom and France in declaring a weapons export ban on Israel, in practice such shipments had been held up, at least temporarily, by German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, both from the left-wing Alliance 90/Greens political bloc, Bild reported last week. That bloc is a coalition partner of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party.
