On the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel with more than 1,200 deaths, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed his solidarity with the citizens of Israel and the relatives of the victims.
A year ago, Hamas attacked Israel, killed, humiliated and raped more than a thousand Israeli people, and documented and filmed it all, said Scholz on the sidelines of a memorial ceremony in a synagogue in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. »We are still shocked. And that’s why it’s so depressing to know that countless Israeli citizens, including many of them German citizens, are still being imprisoned in Gaza and are being held hostage.”
Scholz visited the Hohe Weide Synagogue, the synagogue of the Jewish Community of Hamburg, where he and around 500 guests remembered the victims of the attack on Israel.
Growing anti-Semitism “bad and depressing”
It is now necessary that there is a ceasefire soon, which is linked to the release of the hostages – “and that we assume our responsibility.” This also applies to Germany and to the situation here. “It is depressing to see that anti-Semitism is playing a larger role than in recent years and that has always been bad and depressing,” said the Chancellor.
Therefore, everything must be done to counteract and ensure that the Jewish citizens of Germany can live safely. »We will do this with all the options that our constitutional state provides us, but we will also do it as citizens and clearly side with our Jewish fellow citizens, who must be able to rely on us and rely on us can.”
