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Lebanese Minister: Israeli Strike Closes Off Road Used to Flee Lebanon to Syria

Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
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Lebanese Minister: Israeli Strike Closes Off Road Used to Flee Lebanon to Syria

Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

An Israeli strike on Friday morning near Lebanon's Masnaa border crossing with Syria cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, Lebanon Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters.
Hamieh said the strike hit inside Lebanese territory near the border crossing, creating a four-meter (12 feet) wide crater.
An Israeli military spokesman had accused Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Thursday of using the crossing to transport military equipment into Lebanon.
Israel “will not allow the smuggling of these weapons and will not hesitate to act if forced to do so, as it has done throughout this war," Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
Hamieh had said at a press conference on Thursday that the crossing was subject to the authority of the Lebanese state.
According to Lebanese government statistics, more than 300,000 people - a vast majority of them Syrian - had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

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Morocco Denounces as 'Biased' ECJ Ruling Annulling its Trade Deals with EU

A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
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Morocco Denounces as 'Biased' ECJ Ruling Annulling its Trade Deals with EU

A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)

Morocco's foreign ministry said a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Friday annulling its trade deals with the EU showed "blatant political bias".

The court said the European Commission had breached the right of people in Western Sahara to self-determination by concluding trade deals with Morocco.

The ruling contained legal errors and "suspicious factual mistakes", the ministry said in a statement, urging the European Council, the commission and member states to uphold their commitments and preserve the assets of the partnership with Morocco.

Western Sahara, a tract of desert the size of Britain, has been the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute since colonial power Spain left in 1975 and Morocco annexed the territory.

Earlier on Friday, the European Union’s top court ruled definitively that fisheries and agriculture agreements reached between the bloc and Morocco five years ago failed to include consultations with the people of Western Sahara.

In its ruling, the European Court of Justice said that for the 2019 EU-Morocco farm and fisheries agreements to enter force, they “must receive the consent of the people of Western Sahara. However, such consent has not been given in this instance.”

It said the deals “were concluded in breach of the principles of self-determination and the relative effect of treaties.” The Luxembourg-based court dismissed “in their entirety” legal appeals by the EU’s executive branch and the council representing the 27 member countries.

The fisheries agreement laid out where European vessels with Moroccan permits could fish and included Moroccan-controlled waters west of the disputed territory. The four-year accord has already expired, so the court’s decision will only influence future agreements.

The court acknowledged that the EU institutions had launched a consultation process before concluding the agreements, but said this involved people who were present in the territory, “irrespective of whether or not they belong to the people of Western Sahara.”

It noted that “a significant proportion of that people now lives outside that territory.”