Since April 2024, Germany has been on trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Nicaragua had filed a case against the Federal Republic, accusing it of complicity in the genocide in Gaza. As has now become known, German representatives may have made false statements in their very first testimony before the ICJ in April 2024, concerning the arms exports delivered to Israel.

“Not disclosed”

As Drop Site News (DSN) and the liberal German magazine Stern reported in a joint article, there are now serious doubts about Germany’s statements. They cite comments from the German Defense Ministry, obtained through a press law procedure before a German administrative court. According to these documents, the ministry stated that its testimony before the ICJ in April 2024 had been made “in agreement with the affected state,” meaning Israel. The ministry also admitted that “the differentiated information on Bundeswehr exports,” was “not disclosed in the proceedings before the ICJ.” The Defense Ministry argued before the court that it could not release information about transfers to specific countries “for reasons of contractually agreed confidentiality”, since doing so could seriously damage the trust between Germany and Israel.

Following the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and the beginning of the Gaza genocide in October 2023, the value of German military exports to Israel increased tenfold overnight. The Federal Republic thus became, after the United States, the second most important supplier of weapons to the Zionist regime; at one point, a third of Israel’s weapons were said to have come from Germany. By mid-May 2025, successive German governments had approved arms deliveries worth 485 million euros. Added to this were donations from the Bundeswehr’s own stocks to the IDF.

It is these donations that DSN and Stern have raised doubts about. German representatives had claimed before the ICJ that in 2023 no weapons of war but only “medical supplies and helmets” had been delivered to Israel from Bundeswehr inventories. Lea Reisner, spokeswoman for the Left Party in the German parliament, commented to the German left-wing daily junge Welt: “For many months, the federal government has been deceiving the public about the extent of German arms deliveries to Israel – and now, apparently, also the International Court of Justice.”

Growing pressure

While the fact that Germany is standing trial in The Hague on charges of complicity in a new genocide has been largely ignored within the dominant discourse in Germany, Nicaragua’s case nonetheless appears to have exerted considerable pressure on the German government. Over the course of 2024, the number of weapons delivered by Germany to Israel fell sharply, without any official explanation. Even the state broadcaster Deutsche Welle (which reports far more critically in English than in German in order to project an image of Germany as a country with a critical media landscape, which is just not true) suggested that the decline may be linked to the ICJ case.

In August 2025, the current chancellor, Friedrich Merz, announced that Germany would no longer supply weapons to Israel “that can be used in Gaza”. It quickly became clear, however, that this referred only to new export licenses, while previously approved arms shipments were unaffected. Moreover, Israel’s navy received new warships and submarines from Germany immediately after Merz’s announcement, even though it plays a central role in the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Nevertheless, this surprising step by the German government shows that even in Berlin there was a perceived need to take measures that at least appear to resemble sanctions.

And the possible fact that the Federal Republic may have made false statements at the very beginning of the trial before the UN’s highest court can also be seen as an indication that those in power in Berlin are fully aware that their policy of so-called “German Staatsräson” violates international law. This affair, however, is unlikely to do much for Germany’s credibility before the ICJ.

Leon Wystrychowski is a former member of the Palästina Solidarität Duisburg (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, PSDU). The Organization was banned by the German state in 2024.

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