German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged an end to violence in the Middle East as he joined leaders around the world in marking one year since the October 7 attacks on Israel.
It was Germany’s responsibility to stand by Israel when the homeland of Jews was under attack, Steinmeier is expected to say in a speech at a memorial service in Berlin later on Monday in a transcript seen by dpa in advance.
However, he added, it was also clear that the “principles that guide us are coming up against a painful and contradictory reality” in the fighting that has since been unleashed in the Middle East.
“This war has killed too many people already and caused too much suffering – for Israelis and Palestinians, and now also for the people of Lebanon,” Steinmeier said.
“For a year now, the people in Gaza have also been experiencing immense suffering, every single day.”
Many have lost their lives, many are forced to flee again and again, and are hungry and sick, the German president said.
“Questions are being asked more and more loudly and urgently, and public debate is intensifying – less about whether Israel has a right to defend itself, and more about where the limits to any right to defend oneself lie.”
“I would like to see an end to the dying in the Middle East, but I would like to campaign against relying on simple, simplistic advice in a desperate situation,” Steinmeier said. “The deaths in Gaza, the hunger, the destruction would not have happened without the attack and the massacres of October 7 last year.”
