German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced further arms deliveries to Israel on Thursday in a debate in the Bundestag marking the anniversary of the attack on Israel by the Islamist-Palestinian group Hamas.
“We have supplied weapons and we will supply weapons,” Scholz said.
Representatives of the opposition parties Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) had criticized Scholz’s government for failing to provide sufficient support to Israel.
During the debate in the Bundestag, conservative CDU leader Friedrich Merz said: “For weeks and months, the federal government has refused to authorize the export to Israel of ammunition, for example, and even the supply of spare parts for tanks.”
He added that “a large number of companies” had submitted written documents showing that permission had been requested for months but had not been processed by the government. “What is this but the actual denial of export licenses?” he said.
Between March and August, the German government did not authorize the export of weapons of war to Israel, the Ministry of Economic Affairs had previously revealed, but emphasized that there was no general ban on arms exports to Israel.
Scholz denied Merz’s accusation: “We have made decisions in the government that will also ensure that even more deliveries will take place in the near future. And then you will see that this was a false accusation.”
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green party emphasized the confidentiality of such decisions, which rests with the Federal Security Council within the government.
Scholz’s government has also faced calls from the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) party to impose a ban on arms exports to Israel – a demand that BSW parliamentarian Sevim Dagdelen echoed in the Bundestag debate Thursday.