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Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck: “Israel must change its strategy in the Gaza Strip”

Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck does not see Germany's participation in the Mediterranean aid corridor for the Gaza Strip as a new political position for the federal government.

“From my point of view, this is not a change at all,” said the Green politician on Friday in New York after a conversation with UN Secretary General António Guterres.

"If you have followed the recent efforts of the Foreign Minister and the Federal Chancellor, then we have always tried to provide humanitarian aid on site - as best we could." Because of the humanitarian emergency in the region, we now have to take detours, " So that ways can be found at all. The situation has its origins in the terror of the Islamist Hamas.

Germany's exact role in providing aid via the sea remained unclear - but Berlin could certainly provide food and medical support, Habeck continued.

The Palestinians need aid immediately and must have "a place where they can go and not be swept away by epidemics or hunger."

He also found clear words towards Israel: "The other cabinet colleagues handled it the same way, saying very clearly how we see the situation - and that Israel has to change its strategy in the Gaza Strip.

That doesn't mean they don't have to fight Hamas.

But the number of civilian casualties is too high and the strategy needs to change.”

In view of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, a number of countries now want to deliver goods by sea.

The US military, together with international partners, wants to set up a temporary port in the Palestinian territory.

Large ships loaded with relief supplies should be able to dock at a pier, a high-ranking US government official announced on Thursday.

Germany is also working with partners such as Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates on an aid corridor across the Mediterranean for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, in which terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremist groups murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 in Israel on October 7th.

Israel responded with massive bombings and a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since then, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority.

lph/dpa