Germany’s Scholz urges more aid for Gaza ahead of visits to Israel and Jordan
German chancellor warns of ‘danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited’
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Israel on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid access to Gaza on a larger scale, ahead of a two-day trip to the Middle East.
Scholz will travel to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Saturday to meet on Sunday with Jordan’s King Abdullah before flying on to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about,” Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip.
Israel’s air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip, launched in response to the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught, has displaced most of the population and left people in dire need of food and other essentials.
Germany’s air force said it dropped pallets with four tons of relief goods by air into the enclave on Saturday, amid an international push to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza.
“Every package counts. But airdrops are just a drop in the ocean,” the foreign ministry said on the social media platform X.
Scholz also voiced concern about Israel’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half the Palestinian enclave’s population of 2.3 million have taken shelter.
“There is a danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited,” he added.
Israel has said Rafah, where four Hamas battalions are deployed, remains Hamas’s last major stronghold in the Strip after the IDF operated in the north and center of the Palestinian enclave. It has said an offensive there is necessary to achieve the war’s goals, and is not a question of “if” but “when.”
The plan has caused intense consternation in the international community, including from the US and Egypt, due to Rafah now hosting over a million displaced Palestinians from elsewhere in Gaza. Israel has said it is making plans to evacuate and protect civilians as part of its offensive plans.
