Police carried out raids across Germany on Wednesday targeting charities suspected of providing "financial and propaganda" support to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the interior ministry said.
Around 90 properties in ten states were searched, with the focus of the raids targeting the charities WWR Help and Ansaar International in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Read more: Gaza's youth stare into the abyss
"Whoever supports Hamas under the mantle of providing humanitarian aid disregards the fundamental values of our constitution," Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said. "This also discredits the commitment of the many aid organizations that have committed themselves to neutrality under difficult circumstances."
Hamas, which has armed and political wings, took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after it defeated the PLO-affiliated Fatah party in Palestinian elections. The US, Israel and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
Humanitarian organizations?
Founded in 2012, the Dusseldorf-based Ansaar International describes itself as an aid organization carrying out projects "for the good of Allah." It claims to have 600 members in Germany and around 2,000 around the globe.
According the organization, it provides health services, water and sanitation, orphanages and education to the needy in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Americas.
In Gaza, the organization says it provides emergency food aid, water, electricity and schooling. WWR Help says it provides humanitarian services in Gaza and collects donations for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
The raids in Germany come as the Gaza Strip suffers from a mounting humanitarian crisis marked by electricity shortages and the deterioration of critical health, water and sanitation services.
The crisis is in part caused by three wars between Hamas and Israel since 2008 and an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Israel blames the humanitarian crisis on Hamas' poor governance.
Israel regularly carries out airstrikes in Gaza in response to rocket and mortar fire directed at Israel.
Palestinian protesters have held weekly demonstrations for more than year along the security fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
UN Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed on November 22, 1967, called for the exchange of land for peace. Since then, many of the attempts to establish peace in the region have referred to 242. The resolution was written in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter, under which resolutions are recommendations, not orders.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Camp David Accords, 1978
A coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and Syria, fought Israel in the Yom Kippur or October War in October 1973. The conflict eventually led to the secret peace talks that yielded two agreements after 12 days. This picture from March 26, 1979, shows Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, his US counterpart Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after signing the accords in Washington.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
The Madrid Conference, 1991
The US and the former Soviet Union came together to organize a conference in the Spanish capital. The discussions involved Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians — not from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) — who met with Israeli negotiators for the first time. While the conference achieved little, it did create the framework for later, more productive talks.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Oslo I Accord, 1993
The negotiations in Norway between Israel and the PLO, the first direct meeting between the two parties, resulted in the Oslo I Accord. The agreement was signed in the US in September 1993. It demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from West Bank and Gaza Strip and a self-governing, interim Palestinian authority be set up for a five-year transitional period. A second accord was signed in 1995.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Camp David Summit Meeting, 2000
US President Bill Clinton invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to the retreat in July 2000 to discuss borders, security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. Despite the negotiations being more detailed than ever before, no agreement was concluded. The failure to reach a consensus at Camp David was followed by renewed Palestinian uprising, the Second Intifada.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002
The Camp David negotiations were followed first by meetings in Washington and then in Cairo and Taba, Egypt — all without results. Later the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut in March 2002. The plan called on Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders so that a Palestinian state could be set up in the West Bank and Gaza. In return, Arab countries would agree to recognize Israel.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
The Roadmap, 2003
The US, EU, Russia and the UN worked together as the Middle East Quartet to develop a road map to peace. While Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas accepted the text, his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon had more reservations with the wording. The timetable called for a final agreement on a two-state solution to be reached in 2005. Unfortunately, it was never implemented.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Annapolis, 2007
In 2007, US President George W. Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took part in talks with officials from the Quartet and over a dozen Arab states. It was agreed that further negotiations would be held with the goal of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Washington, 2010
In 2010, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to and implement a 10-month moratorium on settlements in disputed territories. Later, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all issues. Negotiations began in Washington in September 2010, but within weeks there was a deadlock.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Cycle of escalation and ceasefire continues
A new round of violence broke out in and around Gaza in late 2012. A ceasefire was reached between Israel and those in power in the Gaza Strip, which held until June 2014. The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014 resulted in renewed violence and eventually led to the Israeli military operation Protective Edge. It ended with a ceasefire on August 26, 2014.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Paris summit, 2017
Envoys from over 70 countries gathered in Paris, France, to discuss the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu slammed the discussions as "rigged" against his country. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives attended the summit. "A two-state solution is the only possible one," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said at the opening of the event.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Deteriorating relations in 2017
Despite the year's optimistic opening, 2017 brought further stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A deadly summer attack on Israeli police at the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, sparked deadly clashes. Then US President Donald Trump's plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem prompted Palestinian leader Abbas to say "the measures ... undermine all peace efforts."
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Trump's peace plan backfires, 2020
US President Donald Trump presented a peace plan that freezes Israeli settlement construction but retains Israeli control over most of the illegal settlements it has already built. The plan would double Palestinian-controlled territory but asks Palestinians to cross a red line and accept the previously constructed West Bank settlements as Israeli territory. Palestinians reject the plan.
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A history of the Middle East peace process
Conflict reignites in 2021
Plans to evict four families and give their homes in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers led to escalating violence in May 2021. Hamas fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel, and Israeli military airstrikes razed buildings in the Gaza Strip. The international community, including Germany's Foreign Ministry, called for an end to the violence and both sides to return to the negotiating table.
Author: Aasim Saleem
In February, the UN issued a report on the Gaza protests accusing Israel of committing "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."
Nearly 200 Palestinian protesters have been killed and another 9,000 injured during the protests, many by live fire from Israeli military snipers.
The UN inquiry found that Israel's conduct could amount to "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity."
Israel blames Hamas for sparking the violence. It rejected the UN report as "hypocrisy and lies, out of obsessive hatred of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East."
cw/jm (AFP, dpa, epd)
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