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Germany halts military exports that could be used in Gaza, Merz says
The German government will not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice, chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday in response to Israel’s plan to expand its military operations there.
Merz said it was Israel’s right to disarm Hamas and to seek the release of the Israeli hostages but “the German government believes that the even tougher military action in the Gaza Strip decided upon by the Israeli cabinet last night makes it increasingly difficult to see how these goals can be achieved”.
According to Reuters, Merz said in a statement:
Under these circumstances, the German government will not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.
The release of the hostages and negotiations for a ceasefire are Germany’s top priorities, Merz said, expressing deep concern over the suffering of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Germany’s parliament said in June that export licences for military equipment to Israel worth €485m ($564m) were granted between 7 October 2023 and 13 May 2025, reports Reuters.
Key events
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told German chancellor Friedrich Merz that Israel’s goal is not to take over Gaza, but to free Gaza from Hamas and enable a peaceful government to be established there, the prime minister’s office said on X.
Netanyahu expressed his disappointment with Berlin’s decision to suspend weapons exports to Israel during the phone call with Merz on Friday, the office added.
Palestinians on the street following an Israeli attack on the ez-Zeytun neighborhood in Gaza City today…
The day so far
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The German government will not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice, chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday in response to Israel’s plan to expand its military operations there.
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Israel’s decision to take over Gaza City “must have consequences for EU-Israel relations”, EU Council president Antonio Costa said on Friday, adding that this will be assessed by the Council and that he urged the Israeli government to reconsider.
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Despite the announcement of the Israeli plan, mediators from Egypt and Qatar are working on a new framework which will include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go in return for an end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip, two Arab officials told the Associated Press anonymously.
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Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid blasted the security cabinet’s Gaza City decision as “a disaster that will lead to many more disasters” and said far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich had dragged Benjamin Netanyahu into something that was “exactly what Hamas wanted”. Lapid said the decision would lead to the deaths of more hostages and many soldiers as well as “political collapse”.
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Hamas said in a statement that “Netanyahu’s plans to escalate the aggression confirm beyond any doubt his desire to get rid of the captives and sacrifice them in pursuit of his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda”. And in the first reaction by a main Arab neighbour to Netanyahu’s comments on taking over Gaza, a Jordanian official told Reuters that Arabs “will only support what Palestinians agree and decide on”.
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Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund will announce changes to the handling of its Israeli investments, finance minister Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday, ruling out any blanket withdrawal over the war in Gaza. The fund itself said it would provide an update on its Israeli investments on Tuesday.
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David Lammy said he would be discussing the “developing situation in Gaza” and the ongoing war in Ukraine with JD Vance. Sitting alongside the US vice-president at the start of a bilateral meeting at Chevening House, the UK foreign secretary said: “Of course we will be discussing the developing situation in Gaza, which is a great concern, and of course the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the desire to see that come to an end.”
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Saudi Arabia condemns any Israeli move to take control of Gaza, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. The kingdom “categorically denounces Israeli occupation authorities’ persistence in committing crimes of starvation, brutal practices, and ethnic cleansing against the brotherly Palestinian people,” it said in a statement.
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An Israeli airstrike on eastern Lebanon killed a number of people, including a senior member of a Palestinian group and his bodyguard as they were on their way to Syria, news reports and his group said on Friday, according to the Associated Press (AP).
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China expressed “serious concerns” on Friday over Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, urging it to “immediately cease its dangerous actions”. “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in a message.
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Turkey has urged the international community to prevent Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, saying it was a “heavy blow” to peace and security. “We call on the international community to fulfil its responsibilities to prevent the implementation of this decision, which aims to forcibly displace Palestinians from their own land,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday, reports Reuters.
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Israel’s decision to intensify its military operation in Gaza is wrong and should immediately be reversed, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Denmark’s TV2 on Friday. Jordan also condemned Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City.
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Hamas warned the Israeli government on Friday that seizing control of Gaza City would amount to “sacrificing” the hostages still being held in the Palestinian territory. The group said: “The decision to occupy Gaza confirms that the criminal [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his Nazi government do not care about the fate of their captives.”
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More than a hundred UK-based Israelis and allies led by the grassroots activist group Mi-neged staged a protest outside the Foreign Office on Thursday evening, calling for the UK to impose immediate sanctions on Israel and end the war in Gaza.
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Hundreds of demonstrators outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Thursday evening protested against any expansion of the war, demanding an immediate end to the military campaign in return for the release of all hostages.
Israel’s Gaza plan ‘must have consequences for EU-Israel relations’
Israel’s decision to take over Gaza City “must have consequences for EU-Israel relations”, EU Council president Antonio Costa said on Friday, adding that this will be assessed by the Council and that he urged the Israeli government to reconsider.
“Not only [does the decision] violate the agreement with the EU announced by the High Representative on July 19 but also undermines fundamental principles of international law and universal values,” Costa, who heads the European Council that represents EU member states, added in his statement on X.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News in an interview that aired on Thursday that the military intended to take control of all of Gaza.
The announcement from the prime minister’s office early on Friday after Thursday’s security cabinet meeting said the military would take Gaza City, but did not say if Israeli forces would take all of the enclave.
Israel’s cabinet is expected to endorse the Gaza City plan.
Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund will announce changes to the handling of its Israeli investments, finance minister Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday, ruling out any blanket withdrawal over the war in Gaza.
The fund itself said it would provide an update on its Israeli investments on Tuesday. The government this week launched an urgent review of the investments over ethics concerns linked to the war in Gaza and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
“I see several measures over time, but what can be addressed quickly, must be done quickly,” Stoltenberg told a press conference after holding his second meeting with fund officials in three days.
He did not say what these measures could be, but added that there would not be a wholesale divestment from all Israeli companies. “If we did that, it would mean we are divesting from them because they are Israeli,” he said.
US vice-president JD Vance said the US has “no plans” to recognise a state of Palestine during a bilateral meeting with foreign secretary David Lammy at Chevening House.
He said: “Obviously the United Kingdom’s going to make its decision. We have no plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
“I don’t know what it would mean to really recognise a Palestinian state, given the lack of functional government there.”
He added that the US government’s two goals are “very simple”, saying: “Number one, it’s we want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again, and we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas.
“Second, the president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, so we want to make sure that we solve that problem.
“I think all of us can work on how to solve that problem. Obviously, it’s not an easy problem to solve, or it would have already been dealt with, but we share, I think, that focus and that goal. We may have some disagreements about how exactly to accomplish that goal, and we’ll talk about that today.”
More than a hundred UK-based Israelis and allies led by the grassroots activist group Mi-neged staged a protest outside the Foreign Office on Thursday evening, calling for the UK to impose immediate sanctions on Israel and end the war in Gaza.
As civil servants and politicians left the Cabinet Office after work, 98 demonstrators raised 98 red and black globes and a large sign that read: “You let Israel murder 98 today. Each person is a world.” Other signs read “Israelis against genocide” and “stop arming Israel”.
Mi-neged recently sent UK prime minister Keir Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy a letter signed by more than 200 Israeli citizens living in the UK.
A Mi-neged spokesperson said:
Keir Starmer says the UK might act in September. Yet every single day that passes we hear of more people killed by Israel in Gaza. Some by plane, some by bullet, some by engineered starvation. Today it was 98 Palestinians. It is impossible to fully comprehend the scale of this human-made tragedy.
We’ve come here today to physically represent this unconscionable number and to remind our representatives that every single one of those murdered in Gaza is an entire universe, as full, complex and real as they are. For more than 60,000 people it is already too late.
Starmer’s ‘threat’ that the UK will recognise Palestine has unsurprisingly had no effect, and Israel is only talking of ramping up its horrific assault with a full-blown occupation of Gaza. The UK must take immediate action to sanction Israel in ways that would impose a real cost in order to stop its genocidal destruction of Gaza and its people, and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.
David Lammy said he would be discussing the “developing situation in Gaza” and the ongoing war in Ukraine with JD Vance.
Sitting alongside the US vice-president at the start of a bilateral meeting at Chevening House, the UK foreign secretary said:
Of course we will be discussing the developing situation in Gaza, which is a great concern, and of course the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the desire to see that come to an end.
Andrew Sparrow
In a statement about the latest decision from the Israeli government, the independent MP, and former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn has restated his claim that the UK is “complicit in genocide”.
Corbyn said:
If the government was truly horrified by Israel’s occupation of Gaza, it would stop supplying them with the weapons they need to carry it out.
The prime minister can condemn Israel’s plans all he wants. He cannot hide the truth: his government is complicit in genocide.
Belgium FM summons Israeli ambassador, saying Gaza military expansion plans are ‘unacceptable’
Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prévot said on X that the Israeli ambassador had been summoned to express “our total disapproval of this decision”.
In a statement published to the social media site on Friday, Prévot said:
Following the Israeli government’s official confirmation of its intention to subsequently surround and occupy the city of Gaza, and take military control of the entire Gaza Strip, I have decided to summon the Israeli ambassador.
The aim is clearly to express our total disapproval of this decision, but also of the continued colonisation, in particular the resumption of the E1 project east of Jerusalem, and the desire to annex the West Bank as was recently promoted by the Knesset.
All of these actions, with a potential to wipe Palestine completely off the map, are unacceptable and contrary to international law, United Nations resolutions and the decisions of the International Court of Justice. They also pose a major risk to the Israeli hostages still being held.
We must therefore vigorously advocate for a reversal of these plans, which would permanently compromise any prospect of a ceasefire and a peaceful and lasting two-state solution, which Belgium has been insisting on for months, not to mention full free access by land for humanitarian aid.
While it is legitimate to want to destroy the terrorist group Hamas, this cannot be achieved through disproportionate operations that will further lengthen the already very long list of Palestinian civilian victims.
