The war in Gaza will once again be examined by the judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at hearings opening on Monday, April 8. In January, South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians living in the territory. This time, Nicaragua accuses Germany of being an "accomplice." In a petition filed on March 1 with the United Nations' top court, Nicaragua argued that by providing political, financial and military support to Israel and by defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), "Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide."

The situation is "urgent," Nicaragua wrote in the document it submitted to The Hague, where the Court is based, recalling the appalling death toll. On the Palestinian side, 33,175 Gazans have been killed since the start of the reprisals that followed the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which claimed 1,170 lives. And, because it is urgent, Nicaragua's lawyers are asking the judges to order Germany to "immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention," to ensure that weapons already delivered will not be used to commit war crimes and to resume funding UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for logistics in the occupied enclave.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany is the second-largest arms supplier to Israel, behind the US. In 2023, Germany delivered 47% of the conventional weapons imported by Israel. And, according to a report published on April 2 by Forensis, a Berlin-based NGO, "In 2023, 308 individual licenses for exports of military equipment to Israel were authorized, with a total value of approximately €326.5 million, according to the German government." 185 of these licenses were authorized between October 7 and November 2.

Global mobilization

Nicaragua's application to the ICJ supports a global mobilization in favor of an arms embargo on Israel, amplified in the wake of the shootings against a convoy of the NGO World Center Kitchen (WCK) in the north of the Gaza Strip, which led to the deaths of seven aid workers, on April 1, and the revelations of the Israeli online media +972 Magazine, on the Israeli army's use of artificial intelligence to identify its targets.

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