Israeli President Issac Herzog will visit Germany on Monday to mark 60 years of relations with the country that perpetrated the Holocaust, at a time when ties are complicated by the Gaza war.

His German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier will then visit Israel with Herzog, to emphasize Germany’s historic responsibility as one of its staunchest supporters.

Together with their wives, they will tour Israel for two days to highlight a friendship that a grateful Berlin often labels “a miracle” and meet young people, politicians and kibbutz residents.

But while Berlin, now led by conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, says support for Israel remains a core principle, relations have come under strain in recent years.

Israel’s devastating war in Gaza prompted by the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas has sparked charges from many countries and rights groups that its response has been disproportionate.

The International Criminal Court last year issued warrants for alleged war crimes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others including Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.

Germany, meanwhile, has seen the surge of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose leading figures have questioned the country’s “remembrance culture” to atone for Nazi crimes.

Bjoern Hoecke, a key figure of the party that won a record 20 percent in February elections, has labeled Berlin’s Holocaust remembrance site for six million murdered Jews a “memorial of shame

Germany has also voiced deep concern about a rise in anti-Semitism, be it from the far right, the far left or immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries.

In this broad context, “the usual platitudes... no longer convince,” former Israeli ambassador Shimon Stein argued in an article for German news weekly Die Zeit co-written with Hebrew University professor Moshe Zimmermann.

“Sixty years of German-Israeli relations — we are entering a completely new chapter.”

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, speaking to AFP, said that Germany remained “Israel’s most important ally in Europe” and that the two countries are now bound by “a true friendship.”

“Even if things sometimes get tough, it always remains a fair and friendly relationship.”

As the Gaza war has drawn much international condemnation, Germany has been at pains to carefully calibrate its response.

Last Tuesday, the day he took power, Merz said “Israel has the right to defend itself against the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on 7 October and everything that followed.”

“But Israel must also remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations, especially as this terrible war is raging in the Gaza Strip, where this confrontation with Hamas terrorists is necessarily taking place,” he said.