"Germany has only one place, and it is alongside Israel": Olaf Scholz

Tel Aviv [Israel], October 17 : German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday met Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated its support to Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas, The Times of Israel reported.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Israel to hold meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and other officials.
Scholz attended a joint press conference with PM Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, noting Berlin's support for the Jewish state.
He said that Berlin would always stand beside the Jewish state, citing its responsibility following the Holocaust, The Times of Israel reported.
"As I said last week in the Bundestag, in hard times, Germany has only one place, and it is alongside Israel," Scholz said during the joint press conference.
"It is very important to say this today here during these difficult times in Israel, Germany's history and the responsibility it had for the Holocaust requires us to help maintain the security and existence of Israel," he said.
Scholz further said that "no (outside) actor should see it as a good idea to intervene in this conflict."
Meanwhile, Netanyahu at the press conference emphasized that the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7 marks "the worst crimes committed against Jews since the Holocaust..."
According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu said that these atrocities by Hamas remind us of the Nazi crimes of the Holocaust.
"The decapitation of people; the shooting of little children with bound hands; the murder of children in front of their parents; the murder of parents in front of their children; the hiding of babies in the attic and the murderers who came to the attic to murder the babies; the rape and murder of women; the abduction of families, the tearing of grandmothers and Holocaust survivors into captivity; the death pits that remind us of Babyn Yar, where jeeps surround a depression in the ground where they crowd young people in, and they shoot them with machine-guns -- this is the savagery that we only remember from the Nazi crimes of the Holocaust," he said.
Emphasizing that Hamas are the new Nazis, he said, "Hamas are the new Nazis, Hamas is ISIS, in some instances worse than ISIS. And just as the world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the world united to defeat ISIS, the world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas."
He further said that the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas "axis of evil" has "the open goal to eradicate the state of Israel." Hamas's open goal is to kill as many Jews as it can, reported The Times of Israel.
"They would have killed every last one of us, murdered every last one of us if they could; they just don't have the capacity. But they murdered an extraordinary 1,300 civilians... in American terms, many, many, many 9/11s.... We must take action to defeat Hamas, and to ensure this does not happen again," he added.
Noting that it is the battle against barbarism, Netanyahu said, "But this is not only our battle -- it is our common battle, the battle of civilization against barbarism. If it's not stopped here, this savagery will reach you very soon, and reach the entire world."
"We appreciate the fact that you come here to stand with us in this battle for the future of civilization," Netanyahu concluded.
Upon his arrival, Scholz was greeted at the airport by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen who welcomed him on "this important visit, which proves that Germany stands by the State of Israel and supports its struggle for the safety of its citizens."
According to the latest update, the IDF is currently striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon, the Israel Defence Force said.
Moreover, earlier today, the chief of the Hamas military brigade Ayman Nofal was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, reported The Times of Israel.
The Hamas terror group announced the death of the senior member.
Hamas, in their statement said that Ayman Nofal, a member of the terror group's General Military Council and the head of its military wing's Central Gaza Brigade, was killed in a strike in the Bureij refugee camp.
However, the Israel Defense Forces has not yet commented on the apparent assassination, The Times of Israel reported.
Meanwhile, the IDF confirmed that two reservists were wounded in an anti-tank guided missile attack from Lebanon on the northern town of Metula earlier today.
According to The Times of Israel, the Hezbollah terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
One reservist is listed in moderate condition, and the second is lightly hurt. Additionally, an Israeli civilian was also lightly hurt in the attack.
Furthermore, the head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate said that he takes responsibility for the intelligence failures that led to Hamas carrying out its surprise onslaught on October 7.
"In all my visits to Military Intelligence Directorate units in the last 11 days, I sat down and stressed that the beginning of the war was an intelligence failure," Major Gen Aharon Haliva said.
"The Military Intelligence Directorate, under my command, failed to warn of the terror attack carried out by Hamas," Haliva added. "We failed in our most important mission, and as the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, I bear full responsibility for the failure."
"What needs to be investigated, we will investigate, in the deepest and most comprehensive way, and draw the conclusions. But now, there is only one task, to fight back and to win," he said.