While he was supposed to leave the Israeli capital, Olaf Scholz and the German delegation evacuated their plane after a rocket alarm, reported several media outlets, including Der Spiegel.
Tension in the Israeli capital. Eleven days after the war between Hamas and Israel began, Olaf Scholz traveled to Tel Aviv to express his solidarity with the Jewish state. While he was scheduled to leave this Tuesday evening, the Chancellor and his delegation had to evacuate their plane due to a missile alarm, several media outlets reported, including Spiegel.
Olaf Scholz spoke today at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Just as the world was united to defeat the Nazis (…), the world must stand united with Israel to defeat Hamas,” the Israeli official said.
Discussion about “better access for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip”
“The barbarism we witnessed at the hands of the Hamas murderers leaving Gaza is the worst crime against Jews since the Holocaust,” said Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Chancellor considered the “glorification and celebration of violence to be inhumane and despicable.”
“Unlike Hamas, which wants to use the citizens of Gaza as human shields, our concern is also with them,” he added, saying: “We want to protect civilians and avoid civilian casualties.”
In the evening, Olaf Scholz emphasized in an article on X that Israel has the “right to self-defense” and that a state “has the duty to protect its citizens.”
More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since October 7, most of them civilians killed on the day of the attack, the deadliest since the founding of the State of Israel.
The federal government “will continue its humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population,” said Olaf Scholz, adding that he had discussed with Benjamin Netanyahu the possibility of “better access for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.”