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EU Foreign Policy Chief Calls on US to Stop Supplying Weapons to Israel

Residents evacuate from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
Residents evacuate from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
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EU Foreign Policy Chief Calls on US to Stop Supplying Weapons to Israel

Residents evacuate from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
Residents evacuate from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday made a thinly veiled call on the United States to cut arms supplies to Israel due to high civilian casualties in its war in Gaza.

Borrell recalled that US President Joe Biden said last week that Israel's response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack had been "over the top" and US and other Western officials had repeatedly said too many civilians were being killed in Gaza.

"Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed," Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU development aid ministers in Brussels.

"If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe we have to think about the provision of arms," he added.

Borrell also noted that a Dutch court on Monday ordered the government of the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used in violations of international law in the Gaza war.

Borrell said it was contradictory for countries to repeatedly declare that Israel was killing too many civilians in Gaza but do nothing concrete to prevent the killing.

Israel has insisted it takes extensive measures to protect civilians but is forced to conduct military operations in civilian areas as Hamas, the Palestinian militant group responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, operates there.

The United States is Israel's most important foreign arms provider. It gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid annually, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs. Washington has so far not heeded any pleas to cut such aid.

In his remarks in Brussels, Borrell also sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he was not listening to pleas to do more to protect civilians.

"Everybody goes to Tel Aviv, begging 'please don't do that, protect civilians, don't kill so many'. How many is too many? What is the standard?" Borrell said, appearing angry and emotional. "Netanyahu doesn't listen (to) anyone."

Borrell said Netanyahu had been calling for an evacuation of Palestinian civilians from the Rafah area of Gaza - the last part of the enclave where people have found refuge - but the veteran Spanish politician questioned how this could be done.

"They are going to evacuate? Where? To the moon? Where are they going to evacuate these people?" he said.

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Arab World

Tunisian Rights Activist Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

Tunisian rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. (Getty Images)
Tunisian rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. (Getty Images)
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Tunisian Rights Activist Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

Tunisian rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. (Getty Images)
Tunisian rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. (Getty Images)

Prominent Tunisian rights activist Sihem Bensedrine told AFP on Friday that she had been sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges including falsifying part of a transitional justice commission's final report.

"Of course, this is a decision that has nothing to do with justice. It has to do with a totalitarian regime that wants to erase the legacy of the IVD," Bensedrine said, referring to the Truth and Dignity Commission of which she was president.

Bensedrine, 75, said she would lodge an appeal. She had been placed in pre-trial detention for over six months following her arrest in August 2024.

Prosecutors accused Bensedrine of falsifying the commission's final report, among other charges.

Bensedrine said she had been targeted by "officials who are holding the state hostage" in order to "settle scores" and "discredit our work".

Human Rights Watch said in a statement "Bensedrine has for decades been harassed, jailed, and pushed into exile for her human rights work. Her sentence would keep her in prison until she's 100 years old."

The Paris-headquartered International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has said the charges against Bensedrine were "groundless".

The commission's final report, published in 2020, called for "dismantling a system of corruption, repression and dictatorship" within state institutions.

Arab World

Key Points from the US-Lebanon-Israel Agreement

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others watch, seated from left, Israel's Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, counselor Dan Holler, and Lebanon's Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh, sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, at the State Department, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others watch, seated from left, Israel's Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, counselor Dan Holler, and Lebanon's Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh, sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, at the State Department, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
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Key Points from the US-Lebanon-Israel Agreement

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others watch, seated from left, Israel's Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, counselor Dan Holler, and Lebanon's Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh, sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, at the State Department, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others watch, seated from left, Israel's Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, counselor Dan Holler, and Lebanon's Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh, sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, at the State Department, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP)

Washington on Friday released text of a trilateral framework between Lebanon, Israel and the United States aimed at ending hostilities that have been a violent second front of the Middle East war.

The following are highlights of the 14-point agreement signed in the US capital:

- 'Lasting peace' -

Israel and Lebanon, with US support, "affirm their shared goal of achieving lasting peace and security," the agreement begins.

The neighboring states "declare their intent to conclusively end the conflict, address its underlying causes, and to therewith formally conclude any state of war between them."

- 'Verified disarmament' -

The framework determines to make "irreversible progress" towards resolving all issues between Israel and Lebanon, while doing so is to be achieved through "direct bilateral talks, with the mediation and support of the United States."

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) "will restore effective sovereignty over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure."

This will enable the Israel army to "progressively redeploy out of the Lebanese territory."

The framework will set out the steps and verification mechanisms to advance this process.

- Pilot zones -

The LAF will "gradually assume full and effective security responsibility in pilot zones, which will serve as the mechanism for phased and verified redeployments of the Israeli army and the deployments of the LAF."

Two initial zones have been agreed to by both sides, and future pilot zones will be agreed by mutual consent.

Upon confirmation of the disarmament of non-state armed groups, notably the Iran-backed Hezbollah, the LAF will assume full security responsibility in these zones.

"Internationally supported reconstruction efforts will begin, and Lebanese civilians will be able to safely return to these areas under the exclusive control of Lebanese state authorities," the agreement states. "The United States intends to work closely with both countries to verify and support this process."

- Working groups -

Lebanon's government under the deal reaffirms its commitment to restoring full sovereignty over its territory.

It will "rebuild the State's monopoly on the use of force, achieve the complete and verified disarmament of all non-state armed groups, and ensure that such groups will have no military or security role and no armed capabilities anywhere in Lebanon."

Lebanon asks for the support of international and particularly Arab partners, under the leadership of the United States, to do this.

Israel and Lebanon also are to establish "working groups to draft the full comprehensive peace and security agreement" between them, the framework says, and "immediately establish complementary tracks of ongoing direct engagement, facilitated by the United States."

- 'No territorial ambitions' -

Israel for its part states that its military actions in Lebanon "are solely a consequence of the attacks, threat posed by, and hostile intent of non-state armed groups, particularly Hezbollah."

"Termination of this threat," notably through disarmament of such non-state groups and "additional security arrangements to be agreed upon between the two countries," will eliminate any future necessity for Israeli military action or presence in Lebanon, it said.

It also stressed that "the Government of Israel declares that it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon."

Arab World

Hezbollah Supporters take to streets of Beirut to protest Israel deal

Hezbollah supporters block the old airport road in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with burning tires to protest against the trilateral agreement that was signed between the US, Israel and Lebanon on June 27, 2026. (Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP)
Hezbollah supporters block the old airport road in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with burning tires to protest against the trilateral agreement that was signed between the US, Israel and Lebanon on June 27, 2026. (Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP)
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Hezbollah Supporters take to streets of Beirut to protest Israel deal

Hezbollah supporters block the old airport road in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with burning tires to protest against the trilateral agreement that was signed between the US, Israel and Lebanon on June 27, 2026. (Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP)
Hezbollah supporters block the old airport road in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with burning tires to protest against the trilateral agreement that was signed between the US, Israel and Lebanon on June 27, 2026. (Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP)

Hezbollah supporters took to the streets of Beirut late Friday to protest an agreement between Israel and Lebanon, as a lawmaker from the Iran-backed group warned enforcing the deal risked sparking civil war, AFP reported.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that "Hezbollah supporters rode motorbikes through the streets of Beirut" including central areas and along a road leading to the airport "in protest at the framework agreement announced between Lebanon and Israel".

An AFP correspondent saw people riding motorbikes and chanting slogans along one road, as well as Lebanese army temporary checkpoints set up along several streets of the capital.

Lebanese "authorities will be unable to impose the implementation of the agreement signed in Washington unless they go, with American support, to civil war," said Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, whose party has long rejected the direct Israel-Lebanon talks.

He added that "what happened in Washington is an attempt to disrupt the Islamabad path, and without the resistance (Hezbollah) nothing will pass," referring to the initial agreement between the US and Iran on halting the Middle East war, which includes Lebanon.

Footage circulating on local outlets and social media showed hundreds of Hezbollah supporters on motorbikes and mopeds roaming Beirut's southern suburbs, the group's stronghold, before they headed to the heart of the capital.

Some had gathered near the seat of the government and blocked a main road nearby, while other footage showed soldiers chasing away Hezbollah supporters who blocked the main road leading to the airport with burning tyres, before the army reopened it.

The NNA had said protesters blocked at least one major road with burning tyres.