German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a ceasefire in the Middle East and expressed solidarity with Israel on Monday, on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
“Dear friends in Israel, we sympathize with you (…), we are with you,” Scholz said at the opening of a conference on sustainable development in the northern German city of Hamburg.
Scholz also highlighted the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza after a year of war.
“Nothing good can come from the daily experience of violence and hunger,” the chancellor said. “That is why the federal government is calling for a ceasefire, for the release of hostages, for a political trial, even though that now seems further away than ever.”
The only solution to the conflict, according to Scholz, is a two-state solution, so that “Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side permanently.”
But that can only be achieved if a wider escalation in the region is prevented, the chancellor argued, calling on the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and its backers in Iran to end their attacks.