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Spanish PM in Morocco to Discuss Migration

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (L) visits his Moroccan counterpart Saad Eddine el Othmani in Rabat on November 19, 2018. (AFP)
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (L) visits his Moroccan counterpart Saad Eddine el Othmani in Rabat on November 19, 2018. (AFP)
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Spanish PM in Morocco to Discuss Migration

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (L) visits his Moroccan counterpart Saad Eddine el Othmani in Rabat on November 19, 2018. (AFP)
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (L) visits his Moroccan counterpart Saad Eddine el Othmani in Rabat on November 19, 2018. (AFP)

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez held talks with Moroccan counterpart Saad Eddine el Othmani on greater cooperation between their two countries on migration.

"Migration is a shared responsibility and we must reinforce our cooperation in this area," Sanchez said after the meeting during his first official visit to Morocco.

Othmani said Morocco was doing "all that is in its power regarding the fight against illegal immigration".

"The migration question is complex and it cannot be resolved solely through a security approach, despite its importance, it's necessary to favor the development of departure countries in Africa," he added.

Spain is one of the North African kingdom's strongest European allies, and enhanced collaboration on all levels was a focus of Sanchez's visit. It was among the topics discussed at a lunch hosted by Moroccan King Mohammed VI, the official MAP news agency said.

Spain has this year become the main entry point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the majority departing from Morocco.

More than 50,000 migrants have crossed into Spain so far this year, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Madrid has for months been pressing the European Union to unlock funds for Morocco to better tackle people smuggling into the bloc.

Throughout the year, numerous Spanish ministers and officials have traveled to Rabat to discuss security issues and migration.

Moroccan authorities say that between January and the end of September they stopped some 68,000 illegal attempts to cross into Europe and dismantled 122 people smuggling gangs.

While the majority of migrants have taken the perilous sea journey in rubber dinghies, others have scaled fences into the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla which border Morocco.

Morocco, along with Tunisia and Algeria, has refused to serve as an immigration reception and processing center, an idea proposed by the European Union. Morocco instead wants more EU funding to help manage migration across its borders.

Morocco is scheduled to host an international UN-sponsored conference on migration on December 10-11.

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Arab World

US Senator Accuses Hamas and Hezbollah of Rearming

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to reporters after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend closed door meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to reporters after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend closed door meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
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US Senator Accuses Hamas and Hezbollah of Rearming

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to reporters after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend closed door meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to reporters after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend closed door meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)

US Senator Lindsey Graham accused Hamas and Hezbollah of rearming during a visit to Israel on Sunday, and charged that the Palestinian group was also consolidating power in Gaza.

After two years of war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory, a fragile ceasefire has held since October, despite both sides trading accusations of violations.

A separate ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah came into effect in November 2024 after more than a year of hostilities, though Israel continues to carry out strikes on Lebanese territory.

Israel has made dismantling the arsenals of both groups, allies of its arch-foe Iran, a key condition for any lasting peace.

"My impression is that Hamas is not disarming, they are rearming," Graham said in a video statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

"It's my impression that they are trying to consolidate power (and) not give it up in Gaza."

The South Carolina Republican -- a staunch ally of US President Donald Trump, who helped broker the Gaza ceasefire -- added that he believed Hezbollah was likewise seeking to rearm itself.

"My impression is that Hezbollah is trying to make more weapons... That's not an acceptable outcome," he said.

"On both counts you are right," responded Netanyahu, praising the senator as a "great friend of Israel".

Graham's remarks came a day after mediators the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Türkiye urged both sides in the Gaza war to uphold the ceasefire.

The mediators are pressing for the implementation of the second phase of the truce, which would involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the establishment of an interim authority to govern the territory in place of Hamas and the deployment of an international stabilization force.

The second phase also envisages the demilitarization of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas.

Hamas has called on the mediators and Washington to stop Israeli "violations" of the ceasefire.

On Friday, six people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli bombing of a school serving as a shelter for displaced people, according to the civil defense agency in Gaza, which operates under the authority of Hamas.

The Lebanese government, meanwhile, has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting in the country's south.

Israel, however, has questioned the effectiveness of the Lebanese military, and Hezbollah itself has repeatedly refused to lay down its weapons.

Arab World

Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move the country's far-right finance minister said on Sunday was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.  

The decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.  

The latest approvals come days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- all of which are considered illegal under international law -- had reached its highest level since at least 2017.  

"The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalize 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet," the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken. 

Smotrich is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.  

"On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state," he said in the statement.  

"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path." 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel's "relentless" expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.  

It "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State", he said earlier this month.  

Since the start of the war in Gaza, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have proliferated, with several European countries, Canada and Australia recently moving to formally recognize such a state, drawing rebukes from Israel.  

A UN report said the expansion of settlements was at its highest point since 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data.  

"These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years," Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022.  

"These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." 

Excluding east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.  

Smotrich's office said the 19 newly approved settlements are located in what it described as "highly strategic" areas, adding that two of them -- Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank -- would be re-established after being dismantled two decades ago.  

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, the statement said.  

While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law, some wildcat outposts are also illegal in the eyes of the Israeli government.  

Many of these, however, are later legalized by Israeli authorities, fueling fears about the possible annexation of the territory. 

US President Donald Trump has warned Israel about annexing the West Bank.  

"Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," Trump said in a recent interview to Time magazine.  

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 following Hamas's attack on Israel.  

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,027 Palestinians in the West Bank -- both gunmen and civilians -- since the start of the fighting in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.  

At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data. 

Arab World

Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)

The head of Iraq's highest judicial body said Saturday that the leaders of armed factions have agreed to cooperate on the sensitive issue of the state's monopoly on weapons.

However, the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group said that it would only discuss giving up its arms when foreign troops leave the country.

"The resistance is a right, and its weapons will remain in the hands of its fighters," the group said in a statement.

The leaders of three other pro-Iran factions designated by Washington as terrorist groups said that it is time to restrict weapons to state control, although they too have stopped short of committing to disarm -- a long-standing US demand.

Faiq Zidan, the head of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, in a statement thanked "faction leaders for heeding his advice to coordinate together to enforcing the rule of law, restrict weapons to state control, and transition to political action after the national need for military action has ceased".

After Iraq's general elections in November, the United States demanded that the new government exclude six groups it designates as terrorists and instead move to dismantle them, Iraqi officials and diplomats told AFP.

But some of the groups have increased their presence in the new parliament and are members of the Coordination Framework, a ruling alliance of Shiite parties with varying ties to Iran that holds the majority.

The blacklisted groups are part of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces, a former paramilitary alliance that has integrated into the armed forces. But they have also developed a reputation for sometimes acting on their own.

They are also part of the Tehran-backed so-called "Axis of Resistance" and have called for the withdrawal of US troops -- deployed in Iraq as part of an anti-ISIS coalition -- and launched attacks against them.

These groups include the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, which won 27 seats in the elections.

Earlier this week, the group's leader, Qais al-Khazali, a key figure in the Coordination Framework, said "we believe" in "the slogan to restrict weapons to the state", and "we are now part of the state".

Two other groups, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya and Kataeb Imam Ali, said on Friday that it is time to "limit weapons to the state".