Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul has threatened Israel with unspecified measures and said Berlin would not export weapons used to violate humanitarian law, as he and Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered their harshest rebuke yet over Gaza.
Germany and the United States have long supported Israel’s actions since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, even as Israel has been increasingly isolated globally.
Its reversal comes as the European Union reviews its Israel policy, and Britain, France, and Canada have all promised “concrete actions” over Gaza.
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul warned Germany’s historic support for Israel must not be instrumentalised, as massive air strikes and shortages of food and medicines had made the situation in Gaza “unbearable”.
Merz previously criticized air strikes on Gaza as no longer justified by the need to combat Hamas and “no longer comprehensible” during a press conference in Finland.
While not a complete break, the difference in tone is notable in a country whose government has adopted a policy of special responsibility for Israel, known as the Staatsraeson, as a result of the Nazi Holocaust
It also indicates an overall shift in German public sentiment.
“Our committed fight against anti-Semitism and our full support for the right to exist and the security of the state of Israel must not be instrumentalised for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul said.
“We are now at a point where we have to think very carefully about what further steps to take,” he said, without giving further details.
“Where we see dangers of harm, we will of course intervene and certainly not supply weapons so that there will be further harm,” he said, adding that no new weapons orders were currently under consideration.
The shift in government stance comes after calls among the junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, to halt arms exports to Israel or else risk what the move’s backers say would be German complicity in war crimes.
Attacks on Gaza killed dozens in recent days, and the population of more than 2 million faces worsening hunger and starvation, according to a U.N.-backed monitor.
Efforts to revive a short-lived ceasefire that broke down in March have made little visible progress, although one regional diplomat said talks were still going on in Doha and there remained a chance for a deal.
The foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a further request for comment on whether Germany’s next step could include halting weapons shipments.
The chancellor is due to speak to Netanyahu this week.
The German comments are particularly striking given that Merz won elections in February promising to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on German soil in defiance of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The massive military strikes by the Israelis in the Gaza Strip no longer reveal any logic to me – how they serve the goal of confronting terror,” Merz said in Turku, Finland.
