On 11 April 2024, at the Administrative Court of Berlin, ECCHR filed a lawsuit against the German government for exports weapons of war to Israel for use in Gaza. This lawsuit is supported by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, as well as the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq in Ramallah in the West Bank.

With the lawsuit, we are asking the court to suspend export licenses issued by the German government for arms shipments to Israel, as part of provisional measures. The lawsuit concerns licenses for anti-tank weapons in particular.

The enormous number of civilians killed and the daily death rate in Gaza have raised great concern worldwide about violations of international humanitarian law and possible international crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces. There are indications of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian population in Gaza, along with allegations of genocide. By continuing to export weapons of war, the Federal Republic of Germany is violating its obligations under international law, as laid out in the Genocide Convention, the International Arms Trade Treaty and the Geneva Conventions, which Germany has ratified.

The most recent war in Gaza was directly triggered by the attack by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, resulting in the systematic killing of civilians, torture, sexual violence and, ultimately, the mass kidnapping of hostages who were brought to the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israel has been waging a full-scale war in the Gaza Strip, with deadly consequences for the Palestinian civilian population and extensive destruction of the Gaza Strip. Criticism of the proportionality of Israel's actions is not only permissible, but also urgently required under both humanitarian and international law.

ECCHR’s work has addressed the consequences of acts of war in the Gaza Strip for some time. Together with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), we filed a criminal complaint in support of the German-Palestinian Kilani family, who were bombed by the Israeli army in the summer of 2014. During the course of the current war in Gaza, in December 2023, we requested that the German Public Prosecutor General open an investigation into the death of the German-Palestinian Abujadallah family in an Israeli rocket attack.

This lawsuit is part of the efforts of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, as well as Al Haq and the ECCHR, to support survivors as they strive for justice and to hold those responsible for crimes to account.