Germany has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel, source says
Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports.
Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.
However, in response to the Reuters analysis, the German Correspondent for N12 news, Antonia Yamin, reported on Wednesday evening that "such a report on the cessation of arms exports from Germany to Israel is completely wrong."
According to Reuters, last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326.5 million euros ($363.5 million), including military equipment and war weapons, a 10-fold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licenses.
Yet Reuters noted in their report that approvals have dropped this year, with only 14.5 million euros' worth granted from January to Aug. 21, according to data provided by the Economy Ministry in response to a parliamentary question.
Of this, the "weapons of war" category accounted for only 32,449 euros.
A source close to the ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel pending a resolution of legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law.
The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
In its defense of two cases, one before the International Court of Justice and one in Berlin brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the government has said no weapons of war have been exported under any license issued since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, apart from spares for long-term contracts, the source added.
No case challenging German arms exports to Israel has yet succeeded, including a case brought by Nicaragua at the ICJ.
Disagreement on arms exports in German government
But the issue has created friction within the government as the Chancellery maintains its support for Israel while the Greens-led Economy and Foreign ministries, sensitive to criticism from party members, have increasingly criticised the Netanyahu administration.
Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports.
Britain this month suspended 30 out of 350 licenses for arms exports to Israel due to concerns that Israel could be violating international humanitarian law.
In February, a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to halt all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns about their use in attacks on civilian targets in Gaza.
President Joe Biden's administration this year paused - but then resumed - shipments of some bombs to Israel after US concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.
Approvals and shipments of other types of weapons, in more precise systems, continued as US officials maintained that Israel needed the capacity to defend itself.
Alexander Schwarz, a lawyer at ECCHR, which has filed five lawsuits against Berlin, suggested that the significant decline in approvals for 2024 indicated a genuine, though possibly temporary, reluctance to supply weapons to Israel.
"However, I would not interpret this as a conscious change in policy," Schwarz added.
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