"There is no doubt, dear Yoav, whatever we can do to support you, with material support, we will do this," Boris Pistorius said during a visit to Tel Aviv, standing alongside Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
"Germany stands by Israel, by the people of Israel," Pistorius said, reiterating a message of solidarity conveyed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on his visit to Israel last week.
The minister called for the release of hostages taken by Hamas while also expressing his concern at the possibility of an escalation in the conflict.
Israel has responded to the Hamas attack by pounding the coastal enclave of Gaza.
Pistorius travelled to Israel following a visit to German soldiers serving in a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
Earlier on Thursday, he warned against a withdrawal of the long-running U.N. peacekeeping mission, arguing that such a move would send the wrong signal at this time.
Berlin has deployed some 140 soldiers on a corvette off the Lebanese coast and at the headquarters of the UNIFIL mission in southern Lebanon that was hit by a rocket on Sunday without causing casualties.
UNIFIL has operated in Lebanon since 1978 to maintain peace along the border with Israel and was expanded by the U.N. resolution that halted the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Rachel More and Friederike Heine; Editing by Miranda Murray and Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
