On Monday, the International Court of Justice began public hearings on Nicaragua’s request for provisional measures against Germany, accusing it of “facilitating the commission of genocide” against citizens in the Gaza Strip, through its military and political support for Israel.

Nicaragua will present the 43-page lawsuit submitted on March 1, while Germany will respond tomorrow and plead before the court. It is the highest judicial body in the United Nations.

Nicaragua said in the lawsuit: Germany is violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide signed in 1948, after the “Nazi Holocaust,” and is facilitating the commission of genocide by sending military equipment to Israel and stopping funding for the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

Nicaragua called on the court's judges to impose temporary measures to push Germany to stop providing all forms of support to Israel, including weapons, and stressed that the issuance of these measures is necessary and urgent to protect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza.

In the intervention of Nicaragua's legal team before the International Justice Department, he said: Germany violated the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide by supporting Israel, and also continued to support it with weapons despite its knowledge of the possibility of committing genocide in Gaza.

He added: Germany is responsible for the genocide in Gaza by supporting Israel, and has violated the Genocide Convention.

The team indicated that Germany continued to support Israel with weapons despite its knowledge of the possibility of committing genocide in Gaza, and German arms sales to Israel increased during the war period instead of stopping. It is estimated that German military support for Israel increased 10-fold during the past months, and the German government exported to Israel military equipment worth 326 million euros in 2023.

He explained that Germany did not stop its military support for Israel even after the International Court of Justice decision, calling on Germany to stop military support for Israel and not be satisfied with statements.

He pointed out that Germany suspended funding for UNRWA, depriving it of $450 million without taking into account the war on Gaza, and facilitated Israeli violations instead of increasing humanitarian aid to the population.

The team rejected Germany's attempts to justify that its weapons were not used in genocide in Gaza, stressing that Germany is responsible for violating international laws and its international duties related to the situation in Gaza.

The legal team stressed that the Palestinian people are subjected to the most destructive military activities in modern history, and that the excuse of self-defense cannot be used to justify committing genocide crimes.

He noted that there is no protection for civilians in Gaza, and the situation is deteriorating in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, stressing the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to defend themselves against the occupation.

Nicaragua's legal team asked the court to order Germany to stop supporting Israel in the destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people, and to issue a binding decision to support temporary measures regarding the war on Gaza.

In turn, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer confirmed, before the hearings, that his country rejected Nicaragua's accusations, considering that Germany had not violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide nor international humanitarian law.

The International Court of Justice played a notable role in the war on Gaza, as South Africa, in a separate case before the court, accused Israel of committing genocide.

The court ordered Israel to take the necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide, and recently stressed its position by demanding additional measures obligating Tel Aviv to enhance the possibility of delivering humanitarian aid to the Strip, which has been besieged for 17 years.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, leaving more than 100,000 dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly, according to Palestinian and UN data.

Israel continues the war despite the issuance of temporary measures by the International Court of Justice, although the UN Security Council later issued an immediate ceasefire resolution.