NICARAGUA has gone to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with a complaint against Germany for “facilitating the commission of genocide” against the Palestinian people, in coordination with Israel. The South American country has called upon the ICJ judges to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.

In its 43-page submission, Nicaragua has stated that Germany stood in violation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. “By sending military equipment and now defunding UNRWA [UN agency for Palestinian refugees] … Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide,” the Nicaraguan representative said in his opening statement before the top UN court. It is “imperative and urgent” the court ordered such measures, given that the lives of “hundreds of thousands of people” were at stake.

Germany has politically and militarily backed Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 33,000 people, most of them women and children. The country is the second biggest arms supplier to the Zionist state after the US, accounting for 30 per cent of the weapons being used by the Israeli military in its war on Gaza. The two countries together provide 98pc of the weaponry, making them complicit in the ongoing genocide.

German arms exports to Israel have increased tenfold in the last one year. According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the major surge in arms supply came during Israel’s offensive. Berlin has also stopped its funding to UNRWA after an unsubstantiated allegation by Israel that some staff members of the UN agency were involved in the Oct 7 Hamas attack inside........

© Dawn