The ICJ law suit is in response to the arms exports, but also because of the suspended payments to the Palestinian relief organization UNRWA . “There is reason to believe that the defendant (Ed’s note: the German federal government) is violating its obligations under international law under the Genocide Convention by issuing licenses,” the lawsuit states. “The weapons of war in question are being used by the Israeli armed forces in Gaza. Germany is Israel’s Second Largest Arms Supplier after the U.S.Last year, Germany became Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the United States. According to the Stockholm-based peace research institute SIPRI, around 53 percent of the weapons imported by Israel came from the U.S., around 47 percent from Germany (and 0.6 percent from Italy).

Legally, Germany is probably on the safe side, but one sentence from Nicaragua’s lawyer, a German ironically, is likely to stick in the public mind: it is a “pathetic excuse” to drop food from the air and furnish weapons at the same time.