Germany: Baerbock says arms exports to Israel pose 'dilemma' amid risks to international law

Germany’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah attacks, but supplying the occupation state with weapons had posed “a dilemma” amid concerns over international law violations, Reuters has reported.

Annalena Baerbock spoke after arriving in Lebanon for talks on how to defuse escalating Israel-Hezbollah hostilities, five days after the UN said that its peacekeepers had been targeted by Israeli forces in south Lebanon’s conflict zone.

“On the one hand, Israel is attacked every day and not supporting it would mean that people are not (being) protected… On the other, it is also Germany’s responsibility to stand up for international humanitarian law,” said Baerbock.

She made no indication that Germany was reconsidering its long-time policy of supplying arms to Israel. Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week said that Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest Western allies, would continue to provide such military aid.

According to Baerbock, Israel has the right to defend itself against Lebanon’s powerful militia, Hezbollah, but also a responsibility to ensure that it adheres to international humanitarian law.

The minister spoke to journalists in Beirut after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close ally of Hezbollah who has been engaging in diplomatic efforts to end the fighting.

The UN Interim Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said last week that its outposts near Lebanon’s border with Israel had come under several “deliberate” Israeli attacks and that efforts to help civilians in villages in the war zone were being hampered by Israeli shelling. “Any deliberate attack on UN peacekeepers violates humanitarian law,” explained Baerbock.

Israel claims that UN forces in south Lebanon have effectively provided a human shield for Hezbollah fighters and has told UNIFIL to evacuate peacekeepers for their own safety. The order has been rejected.

Baerbock said that the key to achieving peace is the full implementation of the 18-year-old UN Resolution 1701, which entails a Hezbollah withdrawal north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces moving back from the “Blue Line” demarcating the border. “UNIFIL has a crucial role in maintaining stability in the region, and all parties involved must protect its soldiers,” she added, before a scheduled video conference with UNIFIL Commanding General Aroldo Lazaro Saenz later in the afternoon.

“Our common message to the people of Lebanon is that we will not look away, we will not leave them alone,” insisted the German minister. “We are working on a diplomatic solution that respects the security interests of both Israel and Lebanon.”

Germany’s DPA news agency said that Berlin approved arms exports to Israel worth around 31 million euros ($34m) over the past eight weeks, more than twice as much as in the first seven and a half months of this year.

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