Yesterday, Tuesday, a court in Berlin rejected an urgent request submitted by a number of residents of the Gaza Strip to prevent the German government from approving permits to export weapons to Israel on the grounds that they might be used to violate humanitarian law.
The Palestinians received the support of many organizations, including the European Legal Support Centre, the Law for Palestine Organization, and the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy.
They said that there are reasons to believe that such violations are occurring in the devastating war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
But the Berlin Administrative Court said that the plaintiffs had not proven that decisions related to arms exports to Israel were already under consideration, because Germany had refrained from issuing any this year, or would likely allow the export in violation of its obligations under international humanitarian law.
The court also noted that the government has the authority to deny arms export permits, impose additional conditions, or obtain commitments from the recipient state to restrict the use of weapons.
For their part, lawyer groups said that the ruling was incomprehensible, adding that the government does not disclose the requests under consideration for arms exports, which makes it impossible to know in advance.
Ahmed Abed, a lawyer from a legal group in Berlin, said that the government’s withholding of information related to weapons and war crimes “puts the lives of our clients in danger.”
Last year, Germany agreed to export weapons to Israel worth 326 million euros ($354 million), 10 times more than in 2022. But the volume of approvals decreased to about 10 million euros in the first quarter of this year, according to data from the Ministry of Economy.
It is noteworthy that the Israeli occupation army has been waging a war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, which left nearly 122,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction, famine, and an unprecedented humanitarian and health crisis.