Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). Now it seems that even the German government has had enough of the Netanyahu administration’s re-enactment of the Warsaw Ghetto. At least, that is the impression given by headlines such as ‘Germany stops arms deliveries to Israel: a sign against Netanyahu’.
The first thing that strikes one about Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s statements announcing a halt to arms exports to Israel is the wording: ‘Under these circumstances, the German government will not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.’
Anyone who has ever dealt with lawyers will recognise the restriction, because ultimately only exports of goods that are ‘used in the Gaza Strip’ are being stopped. However, Germany’s largest arms deal with Israel currently underway is the construction of submarines, which are known to be used underwater and therefore not in the Gaza Strip …
However, there is a response from the German government, or more precisely from State Secretary Dr Thomas Steffen of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, to a question posed by Left Party MP Jörg Cezanne on 4 July 2025 regarding export licences to Israel for weapons of war, which reads: ‘During the period in question (15 December 2024 to 26 June 2025), no licences were issued for war weapons within the meaning of the question.’
Of course, this does not answer the question of what falls under ‘other military equipment’, some of which Germany also sells to Israel, such as tank transmissions. But at least with regard to ammunition and projectiles of all conceivable types, this response claims that there was nothing to report anyway. However, the website of the Ministry of Economic Affairs lists a figure of 27,973,483 euros for individual licences for the final export of military equipment to Israel. So there they are, the tank engines …
In another response to an inquiry, the German government provided the figures for 2024 up to 23 May. Exports worth 10,094,503 euros were approved for other military equipment, but a total of 32,449 euros for weapons of war.
Incidentally, in June last year, there was a court case in Berlin in which several Palestinian organisations filed a lawsuit to prevent further arms export licences from being granted. The Berlin court dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not been able to prove that such export licences were pending.
Well, anyone familiar with how arms deliveries to Ukraine have been organised, especially the drama surrounding artillery ammunition, will not be particularly surprised that no weapons of war may have been delivered between December 2024 and June 2025 – there was simply nothing left to deliver. And there is, after all, another theatre of war that needs to be supplied.
Of course, this does not change the fact that at the very beginning of the Gaza war, ‘arms worth 485 million euros’ were delivered from Germany to Israel, meaning that, in the long term, Germany has supplied about one-third of the weapons to Israel. This puts it in second place among arms suppliers, behind the United States.
According to information from the Stockholm Peace Institute SIPRI, German arms deliveries to Israel between 2019 and 2023 went mainly to the navy: 81 per cent were frigates, 10 per cent torpedoes. The remaining 8.5 per cent were engines for armoured vehicles, which, however, were then used in Gaza as part of the vehicles.
In addition to German arms exports, such as the aforementioned submarines built by ThyssenKrupp in Kiel, there are also arms exports in the opposite direction, such as a €239 million deal with the Israeli arms company Elbit. However, both are hidden from view from the outset by the phrase ‘for use in the Gaza Strip’.
Incidentally, the same applies to arms deliveries from the United States to Israel, which are carried out in two ways: either by ship (with the small risk that dockworkers will cause difficulties at one location or another) or by plane. In the latter case, there is a stopover on the way from the United States to Israel. This usually takes place in Germany, and overflight and landing must be approved. The German government would be in the privileged position of being able to exert direct influence on US arms deliveries by refusing to grant these two things, for example on the delivery of the aircraft bombs used to bomb refugee tents in the Gaza Strip …
Of course, that is far from the end of the story. In fact, Adis Ahmetovic, the foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, has now suggested that the EU Association Agreement with Israel could be suspended in part or in full. But that is, of course, just a thought experiment for now. And yes, it is primarily Germany that is making a change in the EU’s stance impossible.
The absolute minimum required to gain any credibility with the announcement of restrictions on arms exports would be a list of which goods would actually be affected and whether there are any licences already granted that would be revoked by this decision. As it stands, this announcement seems like a lot of hot air, and it is not even certain that the delivery of MTU engines will be stopped. However, this would be perfectly in line with the current government’s style.
