Families of five Palestinians killed in Israeli missile attack (representative)
Five Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have filed a legal complaint in Berlin against the German government over shipments of arms to Israel, the non-governmental organization representing them said on Friday.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said in a statement that the complaint aimed to “revoke an export license issued by the German government to ship weapons to Israel.”
A spokesman for Berlin’s administrative court confirmed receipt of the complaint on Thursday evening. The official added that the five plaintiffs live in different areas of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.
The spokesman said the Palestinians were “challenging authorizations already obtained for the shipment of anti-tank weapons” and trying to block shipments that had not yet been authorized.
The complaint is against the Ministry of Economy, which now has two weeks to respond.
According to the European Commission on Human Rights, five Palestinian family members have been killed in Israeli missile strikes since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the war.
The plaintiffs claim that Berlin failed to fulfill its obligations under international law, including the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.
“Germany cannot be true to its values if it exports arms to a war that is a clear and serious violation of international humanitarian law,” said Wolfgang Kaleck, secretary-general of the European Commission on Human Rights.
Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms exporter after the United States, accounting for 30% of Israel’s arms imports between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Berlin is facing a case at the International Court of Justice in which Nicaragua says it violated the United Nations Convention on Genocide, which was established in the aftermath of the massacre.
On Tuesday, Berlin representatives insisted that Germany was only providing weapons “on the basis of a detailed review… which goes far beyond what is required by international law”.
Since Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on October 7, Israel has launched a ruthless military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
According to official Israeli figures, some 1,160 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Hamas attacks.
Israel later vowed to eradicate Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 33,000 people have died, mostly civilians.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
