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Dear supporters,

In the year 2012, a US drone attack struck the Yemini village of Khashamer, killing two members of the bin Ali Jaber family. The strike would not have been possible without the US Air Force base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany – a central relay hub for the control of American drone strikes worldwide.

With our support, the family sued the German federal government in 2014, in order to put a stop to the use of Ramstein in attacks that violate international law – and in July 2025, they lost the case before the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. A setback? Not entirely. Because at the same time, the court upheld an important legal principle: Germany has a duty to protect people abroad when the German state authority enables acts of violence that violate international law.

In its judgment, the court explicitly specifies two crucial requirements:

First, there must be a sufficient connection to the German state authority, for example when German authorities, infrastructure or personnel are directly involved.

Second, a serious risk of systematic violations of international law must be present. In the case of the bin Ali Jaber family, the court did not consider these hurdles to have been met. However, the decisive factor in this is that the possibility for judicial review has now been confirmed.

This is precisely what makes this verdict significant for our work against weapons exports. What failed with the Ramstein case at the Federal Constitutional Court after 11 years of litigation could succeed in Gaza: stopping the export of German arms that violate international law and systematically kill Palestinian civilians.

Mr. Abed J. from Gaza, whom we are legally supporting, lost his wife and child in Israeli attacks. Now, he is taking legal action against the export of tank transmissions produced by the Renk company – with a major difference from the Ramstein case. While the illegality of the military campaign in Yemen is disputed, the systematic violations of international law in Gaza are much easier to prove – for example, through UN reports, arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court and ongoing proceedings at the International Court of Justice. It becomes particularly clear in this context that by authorizing the export of key components for the deadly Merkava and Namer tanks, the German government has not only supplied weapons, but has also violated its duty to protect the Palestinian civilian population.

Paradoxically, the Ramstein ruling opens the door for us: when the German state directly enables acts that violate international law, the courts must intervene. Even though Abed J. from Gaza lost his case in the specialized courts, he intends to exhaust all possible legal avenues. We will continue to stand by him – in the next instance, before the Federal Constitutional Court.

Ultimately, this is about much more than legal victories. Gaza shows us every day: when Germany exports weapons to war zones, we bear joint responsibility for what happens with those weapons. Every authorized export, every civilian killed affects us all.

Since early 2024, we have supported several urgent requests against German exports of weapons of war and arms shipments to Israel and, together with our Palestinian partner organizations, have enabled lawsuits against the German federal government. Initial reactions from the government are discernible, but are still insufficient – which is why we remain resolute in continuing our work. We need your support to bring this urgent matter to court before it is too late.