Nicaragua accuses Germany of complicity in Gaza genocide at World Court

As part of the first hearings this week in a historic case to hold a country responsible for abetting genocide, Germany defended itself on Tuesday at the World Court.

The suit Nicaragua filed against Germany builds upon a case South Africa brought before the court last year in which it contested that Israel was contravening the Genocide Convention in its ongoing aggression in Gaza.

Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in the six-month onslaught, while recent assessments show that severe food scarcity threatens over a third of Palestinians across the strip. 

Nicaragua’s claim, in its application to the International Court of Justice, is that Germany’s provision of “political, financial and military support to Israel” with knowledge of the crimes being committed constitutes a crime.

Nicaragua has asserted that the military aid provided to Israel by Germany, the second largest arms supplier after the United States, has facilitated Israel’s commission of genocide in Gaza. 

It argued, too, that Germany “turned its back on Palestinians” by cutting funding to UNRWA, the primary organization responsible for providing aid within the strip, placing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians in danger of severe resource insecurity due to Israel’s restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza. 

“It is indeed a pathetic excuse to the Palestinian children, women and men in Gaza to provide humanitarian aid, including through airdrops, on the one hand, and to furnish the weapons and military equipment that are used to kill and annihilate them,” lawyer Daniel Müller told judges in the court’s Monday hearing of Nicaragua’s suit.

Nicaragua also petitioned the court on Monday to order Germany to halt its provision of military aid to Israel and to resume funding to UNRWA.

Although World Court orders are legally binding, Israel has failed to comply with previous measures outlined in the case. 

As part of Germany’s defense at the ICJ on Tuesday, a German federal foreign office official told the court that Berlin holds Israel's security “at the core” of its foreign policy. Israel’s security is “a responsibility that must continue to guide us,” said the official, Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, who is the foreign office’s legal advisor and director general for legal affairs.

Uslar-Gleichen added that Germany supports Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to a state based on the 1967 borders, noting that Israel’s illegal settlements are in violation of international law and undermine the two-state solution.

Also acting in defense of Germany, Sorbonne Professor of International Law Christian Tams pushed back against the assertion that Germany’s provision of arms has been used to  facilitate genocide. Tams told the court that all of Germany’s military assistance is provided under a “robust legal framework that is compliant with international law,” itemizing Germany’s sales to Israel since October and arguing that all were for the purposes of testing, training or industrial cooperation, and not for use in combat. 

Germany also contested Nicaragua’s assertion that it has reduced its financial support to Palestine. “Rather than halting support, Germany has tripled its support to Palestinains in the OPT since the beginning of the conflict,” said Tams. He said Nicaragua’s assertion that Germany defunded UNRWA was “without merit,” justifying Berlin’s decision to halt funding to the humanitarian agency for Palestinians as based on “grave accusations” that UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel. 

Although multiple countries suspended funding to UNRWA on the basis of Israeli claims that the agency’s staff were implicated in the October 7 operation, no evidence has emerged to support the accusation. Many countries have resumed funding to UNRWA, including Brussels, Spain and France. Germany and the United States have not resumed funding for UNRWA’s Gaza operations.

Germany also argued that it had intensified its financial support for Palestinians in the West Bank, Jordan and via other United Nations agencies and the International Committee for the Red Cross. 

It remains for the ICJ to decide whether it is competent to litigate the suit. Nicaragua’s case is based on the ICJ’s decision affirming competency in South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide, as well as on the ICJ’s decision that there is plausible evidence that genocidal acts were committed and its decision to issue precautionary orders to Israel. 

Germany’s Tuesday defense contested the ICJ’s competency to litigate Nicaragua’s suit. The World Court should first prove that Israel is in violation of the Genocide Convention, said lawyers. 

Even in the event that Israel is convicted of violating the Genocide Convention, they continued, Nicaragua’s case would be without standing as Germany has worked to mitigate the humanitarian conditions in Gaza via the provision of aid.