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Lawyers Sue Germany in Bid to Block Arms Exports to Israel
"There is reason to believe that these weapons are being used to commit grave violations of international law, such as the crime of genocide and war crimes."
Apr 06, 2024
The Berlin-based Lawyers' Collective on Friday sued the German government in an effort to stop weapons transfers to Israel, whose government and military are waging a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany is the second-largest arms exporter to Israel, providing 30% of its imported weaponry from 2019-23. The top exporter, the United States, provided 69% of Israel's imported armaments during that same period.
"As there is reason to believe that these weapons are being used to commit grave violations of international law, such as the crime of genocide and war crimes, the applicants are hereby demanding that the German government protect their right to life," groups supporting the lawsuit—including the European Legal Support Center, Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, Law for Palestine, and Forensis—said in a statement.
Ahmed Abed, an attorney in the case who is representing Palestinian families, said during a Friday press conference in Berlin that "Germany has a constitutional responsibility to protect human life."
"The German government must stop its arms exports to Israel, as they are in violation of international law," he added. "The government cannot claim that it is not aware of this."
According to the Lawyers' Collective:
In 2023, the German government issued arms exports licenses to Israel worth €326.5 million, the majority of which were approved after October 7, 2023, a tenfold increase compared to 2022. The German government is currently supporting the Israeli army by approving the supply of 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons, 500,000 rounds of ammunition for machine guns, submachine guns, or other fully or semi-automatic firearms, as well as other military equipment, while in early 2024 Germany was preparing the authorization of 10,000 rounds of 120mm tank ammunition...
The arms deliveries and support provided by the Federal Government to Israel violate the Federal Republic's obligations under the War Weapons Control Act. The criteria for the approval of arms exports include, among other things, that the weapons are not used against Germany's obligations to international law.
The groups said that since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found in January that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, they believe that "the delivery of weapons is contrary to these obligations."
In February, lawyers from some of the same groups involved in the new lawsuit sued senior German officials, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for "aiding and abetting" Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Last month, Nicaragua filed an ICJ lawsuit against Germany accusing its government of helping Israel commit genocide against Palestinians.
In addition to exporting hundreds of millions of euros worth of arms to Israel, Germany also suspended contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in response to unsubstantiated Israeli accusations that 12 of the agency's 13,000 workers in Gaza were involved in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel. This, as Palestinians starve to death.
The German government has been intensely criticized for its nearly unconditional support for Israel and for violently cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests. Numerous observers contend that Germany's actions are driven by historical guilt over the Holocaust, with some critics claiming the German government is weaponizing that guilt in order to demonize Palestinians and their defenders.
The new lawsuit came as the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday voted 28-6 with 13 abstentions in favor of a resolution demanding that Israel be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The United States and Germany were the two biggest countries to vote against the measure.
Palestinian and international human rights officials say at least 33,173 Palestinians—most of them women and children—have been killed by Israel's bombing, invasion, and siege of Gaza since October 7. More than 75,800 others have been wounded, while over 7,000 Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.
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After 'One Phone Call' With Biden, Israel Opens Erez Crossing to Increase Gaza Aid
"Imagine how many lives could have been saved if this leverage had been used earlier, as so many urged."
Apr 05, 2024
The news late Thursday that Israeli officials had approved the reopening of the Erez crossing between Israel and northern Gaza to allow more humanitarian aid to reach starving Palestinians was greeted with cautious optimism by rights groups, as critics of U.S. President Joe Biden's Israel policy noted that the approval was granted shortly after Biden issued a warning to the Israeli government.
Biden reportedly threatened to condition future military support for Israel in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, marking the first time the president has used his leverage as the top international funder of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to influence Israel's actions in Gaza.
"Very good news coming just hours after Biden finally signaled a willingness to withhold aid," said Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. "Imagine how many lives could have been saved if this leverage had been used earlier, as so many urged."
The Erez crossing was expected to receive humanitarian aid shipments starting Sunday, Israeli officials told CNN, with more aid entering Gaza through the Ashdod port the same day.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the news offers a "glimmer of hope" but said Israel must demonstrate that the change in policy will have a meaningful impact on the lives of Gaza's 2.3 million residents, including 300,000 Palestinians who are believed to be trapped in Gaza and subsisting on just 245 calories per day due to Israel's monthslong blockade on nearly all humanitarian aid.
"Israel and its allies must ensure that aid can now flow freely to avert a famine, and that there will be a protection system for humanitarian workers that guarantees our security," said Egeland. "Most of all we need protection for Palestinian civilians, who have been indiscriminately killed during these last six months."
Biden's call to Netanyahu came days after Israel killed seven aid workers, including one American citizen, who were delivering relief with World Central Kitchen (WCK). The strike on the clearly-marked WCK convoy prompted ships carrying 240 tons of aid to turn back from Gaza.
The attack has prompted some of Biden's closest allies, including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) to add their voices to calls that have consistently been made by international human rights experts, the United Nations, and progressive lawmakers for the U.S. to apply conditions to military aid for Israel in accordance with U.S. law.
Despite Biden's warning, he has also been pushing Congress this week to approve an $18 billion military aid shipment to Israel.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said the news of the Erez crossing reopening was "positive news but, of course, we will have to see how this is implemented."
"We need a humanitarian cease-fire and a massive influx of aid," said Dujarric.
Shortly after Israel made its announcement, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling on countries to stop sending weapons to Israel.
Twenty-eight of 47 member countries supported the resolution, which demanded Israel be held accountable for possible war crimes, while six opposed it. Thirteen countries abstained.
The U.S. was among the countries that opposed the resolution, despite Biden's threat to condition aid to Israel.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, commended the countries that "voted to pass a resolution calling to halt arms transfers to Israel at this critical moment."
"Next step for all states is to enforce this as well as recent U.N. resolutions to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza," said Albanese. "This is in line with states' obligations under international law including ICJ [International Court of Justice] provisional measures."
The ICJ last week ordered Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where more than 25 children are among dozens who have died of starvation so far.
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Draft UN Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide
"Israel's genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure."
Mar 25, 2024
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.
The advance unedited version of the report—entitled Anatomy of a Genocide—concludes that Israel's far-right government and military "have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people."
"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," the draft report states, enumerating Israeli actions that violate Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: "Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
"Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as 'terrorist' or 'terrorist-supporting,' thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable," the paper continues. "In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza, and causing irreparable harm to its entire population."
Israel
rejected the report as "an obscene inversion of reality."
According to Palestinian and international humanitarian officials, Israel's 171-day Gaza onslaught has killed at least 32,333 Palestinians, most of them women and children, while wounding nearly 75,000 others and displacing around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people. Thousands more Palestinians are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings. Disease and deadly starvation caused and exacerbated by Israel's siege and blockade of Gaza are spreading rapidly.
"Israel's genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure," the draft report asserts. "For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group—demographically, culturally, economically, and politically—seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources."
Referring to the flight and ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the paper contends that "the ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all. This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land."
"The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all."
The draft report urges U.N. member states to "enforce the prohibition of genocide in accordance with their... obligations" under international law. In January, the U.N.'s International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel was "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza and ordered the country's government to "take all measures within its power" to prevent genocidal acts. Human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order.
"Israel and those states that have been complicit in what can be reasonably concluded to constitute genocide must be held accountable and deliver reparations commensurate with the destruction, death, and harm inflicted on the Palestinian people," the publication argues.
The draft report recommends measures including:
- Immediate implementation of an arms embargo on Israel, as it appears to have failed to comply with the binding measures ordered by the ICJ;
- Immediate referral of the situation in Palestine to the International Criminal Court in support of its ongoing investigation;
- Ensuring that Israel, as well as states who have been complicit in the Gaza genocide, acknowledge the colossal harm done, commit to nonrepetition, with measures for prevention and full reparations, including the full cost of the reconstruction of Gaza;
- Deploying an international protective presence to constrain the violence routinely used against Palestinians in the occupied territories; and
- Ensuring that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is properly funded to enable it to meet the increased needs of Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel on Monday informed the U.N. that it will no longer allow UNRWA convoys carrying food aid into northern Gaza, even as the Palestinians are starving to death, a move that one humanitarian campaigner called a "death sentence."
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