German Chancellor Friedrich Merz heads to Israel on Saturday (December 6, 2025) for his first visit since taking office, aiming to reaffirm traditionally solid ties that were shaken during the Gaza war.

Mr. Merz, after stopping in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II, is set to fly on to Israel in the evening before meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday.

The German leader is also expected to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Given the dark legacy of Nazi Germany’s industrial-scale murder of Jews, German leaders have long seen unflinching support for Israel as a bedrock of the country’s foreign policy.

In a speech in September celebrating the reopening of Munich’s synagogue, which was severely damaged by the Nazis, Mr. Merz visibly struggled to hold back tears, his voice breaking.

But Israeli-German ties were shaken during the Gaza war set off by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.

Mr. Merz, who took power in May this year, has repeatedly criticised Israel’s relentless military campaign, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

In August, he also moved to restrict sales of weapons for use in Gaza.

Since a fragile U.S.-backed ceasefire and hostage deal ended full-scale fighting, Germany has lifted those export restrictions.

Despite the ceasefire deal, more than 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health authorities, as well as three Israeli soldiers.

The UN also warns that Israel is still not allowing enough aid into Gaza.

Before leaving Berlin on Saturday morning, Mr. Merz spoke with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmud Abbas.

A spokesman said Merz underscored German support for a two-state solution but urged Abbas to push through “urgently necessary reforms” of the PA in order to play a “constructive role” in the postwar order.

‘Signal of support’

After the recent strains, Israel expects a “signal of continued support” from Mr. Merz, said Michael Rimmel, head of the Jerusalem office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, affiliated with Mr. Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).

German-Israeli relations have been strained over the past two years but remain “better than many people think”, Rimmel told AFP.

But he said Berlin has little discernible influence on Mr. Netanyahu’s government, which has pushed on with West Bank settlements despite protests from Berlin and elsewhere, and dismissed calls for a two-state solution.

“Certainly, President Trump and the Americans have greater influence,” said Rimmel, noting that the US president was able to pressure Mr. Netanyahu into the Gaza ceasefire.

Gil Shohat, head of the Tel Aviv office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which is affiliated with Germany’s far-left Die Linke party, sharply criticised Mr. Merz for making the trip.

Mr. Shohat argued that Mr. Merz is effectively offering political support to Mr. Netanyahu and Israel’s hard-right government.

“Netanyahu is a wanted war criminal and is under suspicion of corruption,” said Mr. Shohat. “Going there now and legitimising him is a fatal sign of normalisation in a situation that must not be normalised.”

Defence deals

Although Mr. Merz’s public criticism of Israel was unusual for a German leader, it was measured by international standards.

Mr. Merz recently offered Israel full-throated support as European broadcasters weighed whether to exclude the country from the annual Eurovision Song Contest, calling such a possibility “scandalous”.

The decision to include Israel in the upcoming Eurovision event, reached on Thursday, was warmly welcomed in Berlin even as it prompted boycotts from Spain, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Still, despite the close ties, German officials have said there are currently no plans to invite Mr. Netanyahu — who faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes in Gaza from the International Criminal Court (ICC) —to Berlin.

Mr. Merz, not long after his party’s election victory in February, vowed to invite the Israeli leader and told him in a phone call that he would not be arrested.

Any tensions in German-Israeli relations have also not disrupted key military ties. Germany last week put into operation the first phase of the Israeli-made Arrow missile defence shield.

The $4.5 billion deal was reportedly the largest arms export agreement in Israeli history, and Berlin has also turned to Israeli firms for help in drone defence.

The German-Israeli Society — which said Mr. Merz’s visit must aim to “repair the damaged German-Israeli relations” — also pointed out that defence ties “have long since reversed”.

“Israel is no longer dependent on German technology, but rather German defence depends on Israeli technology.”

Published – December 06, 2025 10:14 pm IST

Protesters wave Palestinian flags, chant slogans and hold banners during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Waterloo Bridge, in London, on May 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.

A source close to the Ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel due to legal and political pressure from legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law.

The Economy Ministry said on Thursday (September 19, 2024) there was no ban on arms exports to Israel and there would not be one, with decisions made case-by-case after careful review, adding that international law, foreign and security policy were key factors in their assessments.

“There is no German arms export boycott against Israel,” a spokesperson for government said on Wednesday (September 18, 2024), commenting on the report.

Last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth €326.5 million ($363.5 million), including military equipment and war weapons, a 10-fold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licences.

However approvals have dropped this year, with only €14.5 million worth granted from January to August 21, according to data provided by the Economy Ministry in response to a parliamentary question.

Of this, the weapons of war category accounted for only €32,449.

In its defence of two cases, one before the International Court of Justice and one in Berlin brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the government has said no weapons of war have been exported under any licence issued since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, apart from spares for long-term contracts, the source added.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since October 7, according to the local Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. It has also displaced most of the population of 2.3 million, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court, which Israel denies. No case challenging German arms exports to Israel has yet succeeded, including a case brought by Nicaragua at the ICJ.

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Disagreement on arms export in German government

But the issue has created friction within the government as the Chancellery maintains its support for Israel while the Greens-led Economy and Foreign Ministries, sensitive to criticism from party members, have increasingly criticised the Netanyahu administration.

Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports.

Britain this month suspended 30 out of 350 licences for arms exports to Israel due to concerns that Israel could be violating international humanitarian law.

In February, a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to halt all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns about their use in attacks on civilian targets in Gaza. President Joe Biden’s administration this year paused — but then resumed — shipments of some bombs to Israel after U.S. concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.

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Approvals and shipments of other types of weapons, in more precise systems, continued as U.S. officials maintained that Israel needed the capacity to defend itself.

Alexander Schwarz, a lawyer at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, which has filed five lawsuits against Berlin, suggested that the significant decline in approvals for 2024 indicated a genuine, though possibly temporary, reluctance to supply weapons to Israel.

“However, I would not interpret this as a conscious change in policy,” Mr. Schwarz added.

Israeli soldiers patrol in a tank near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, on the Israeli side April 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Preliminary hearings open on Monday at the United Nations’ top court in a case that seeks an end to German military and other aid to Israel, based on claims that Berlin is “facilitating” acts of genocide and breaches of international law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Israel strongly denies its military campaign amounts to breaches of the Genocide Convention.

While the case brought by Nicaragua centers on Germany, it indirectly aims for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly October 7 attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.

“We are calm and we will set out our legal position in court,” German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Fischer said ahead of the hearings.

“We reject Nicaragua’s accusations,” Mr. Fischer told reporters in Berlin on Friday. “Germany has breached neither the genocide convention nor international humanitarian law, and we will set this out in detail before the International Court of Justice.”

Nicaragua has asked the court to hand down preliminary orders known as provisional measures, including that Germany “immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention” and international law.

The court will likely take weeks to deliver its preliminary decision and Nicaragua’s case will probably drag on for years.

Monday’s hearing at the world court comes amid growing calls for allies to stop supplying arms to Israel as its six-month campaign continues to lay waste to Gaza.

The offensive has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population. Food is scarce, the U.N. says famine is approaching and few Palestinians have been able to leave the besieged territory.

“The case next week in The Hague will likely further galvanize opposition to any support for Israel,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

On Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel. The United States and Germany opposed the resolution.

Also, hundreds of British jurists, including three retired Supreme Court judges, have called on their government to suspend arms sales to Israel after three U.K. citizens were among seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen killed in Israeli strikes. Israel said the attack on the aid workers was a mistake caused by “misidentification.”

Germany has for decades been a staunch supporter of Israel. Days after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained why: “Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel,” he told lawmakers.

Berlin, however, has gradually shifted its tone as civilian casualties in Gaza have soared, becoming increasingly critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and spoken out against a ground offensive in Rafah.

Nicaragua’s government, which has historical links with Palestinian organizations dating back to their support for the 1979 Sandinista revolution, was itself accused earlier this year by U.N.-backed human rights experts of systematic human rights abuses “tantamount to crimes against humanity.” The government of President Daniel Ortega fiercely rejected the allegations.

In January, the ICJ imposed provisional measures ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and acts of genocide in Gaza. The orders came in a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention.

The court last week ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.

On Friday, Israel said it’s taking steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including reopening a key border crossing into northern Gaza.

Nicaragua argues that by giving Israel political, financial and military support and by defunding the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

Israel strongly denies that its assault amounts to genocidal acts, saying it is acting in self defense. Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told judges at the court in January that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”