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Tunisian Judge Orders Detention of Prominent Lawyer

Saeb Souab, son of former president of the Administrative Court Ahmed Souab, speaks during a press conference in Tunis on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Fethi Belaid / AFP)
Saeb Souab, son of former president of the Administrative Court Ahmed Souab, speaks during a press conference in Tunis on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Fethi Belaid / AFP)
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Tunisian Judge Orders Detention of Prominent Lawyer

Saeb Souab, son of former president of the Administrative Court Ahmed Souab, speaks during a press conference in Tunis on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Fethi Belaid / AFP)
Saeb Souab, son of former president of the Administrative Court Ahmed Souab, speaks during a press conference in Tunis on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Fethi Belaid / AFP)

A Tunisian anti-terrorism judge ordered on Wednesday the detention of prominent lawyer Ahmed Souab, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, lawyers said, two days after his arrest for comments about the judiciary.
Souab's arrest sparked widespread anger among political parties and civil society groups, which said the move was a dangerous escalation of a crackdown on dissent, Reuters reported.
Activists took the streets in protest this week demanding his release, chanting slogans against Saied and demanding an end to the harassment, silencing and imprisonment of critics.
Souab is among the lawyers acting for opposition leaders who received prison sentences on Saturday on conspiracy charges.
Souab strongly criticized the judge and the trial last week, calling the proceedings a farce and saying the judiciary had been destroyed. He also said that "the judges are under pressure, with a knife to their heads.”
An anti-terrorism court interpreted the comment as a threat to the judges, but Souab's lawyers said it was a reference to the huge political pressure on judges.
Souab had been detained on "terrorism-related charges" over the comment, a spokesperson for the court said.
Souab is a retired administrative judge and lawyer, and a vocal critic of Saied who has repeatedly said the judiciary had lost its independence.
Souab's lawyers boycotted Wednesday's hearing, after the judge informed them that he had accepted the representation of only four lawyers out of the dozens present to defend him.

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Arab World

Iraq Shuts Down Lukoil West Qurna 2 Field Due to Leak, Sources Say

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the West Qurna-2 oilfield in southern Basra, Iraq, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the West Qurna-2 oilfield in southern Basra, Iraq, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo/File Photo
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Iraq Shuts Down Lukoil West Qurna 2 Field Due to Leak, Sources Say

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the West Qurna-2 oilfield in southern Basra, Iraq, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the West Qurna-2 oilfield in southern Basra, Iraq, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo/File Photo

Iraq has shut down the entire oil production at Lukoil's West Qurna 2 field of around 460,000 barrels per day due to a leak on an export pipeline, two Iraq energy officials told Reuters on Monday, Reuters reported.

West Qurna 2 is one of the world's biggest fields, with output amounting to nearly 0.5% of global oil production.

Arab World

UN Palestinian Aid Agency Says Israeli Police ‘Forcibly Entered’ Compound in Jerusalem 

Offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, are seen in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
Offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, are seen in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
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UN Palestinian Aid Agency Says Israeli Police ‘Forcibly Entered’ Compound in Jerusalem 

Offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, are seen in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
Offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, are seen in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)

Israeli police forcibly entered the compound of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem early Monday, escalating a campaign against an organization that has been banned from operating on Israeli territory.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, said in a statement that “sizeable numbers” of Israeli forces including police on motorcycles, trucks and forklifts entered the compound in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and cut communications to the compound.

“The unauthorized and forceful entry by Israeli security forces is an unacceptable violation of UNRWA’s privileges and immunities as a UN agency,” the agency said.

Photos taken by an Associated Press photographer show police cars on the street and an Israeli flag planted on the compound's roof. Photos provided by UNRWA staff show a group of Israeli police officers inside the compound.

Police said in a statement they entered for a “debt-collection procedure” spearheaded by Jerusalem's municipal government, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The raid was the latest action in Israel's campaign against the agency, which provides aid and services to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

The agency was established to help the estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. UNRWA supporters say Israel hopes to erase the Palestinian refugee issue by dismantling the agency. Israel says the refugees should be permanently resettled outside its borders.

For more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA was the main lifeline for Gaza's population, which was largely reliant on aid because of humanitarian crisis unleashed by heavy Israeli bombardment and restrictions on the entry of goods.

Throughout the war, Israel has accused the agency of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations the UN has denied. After months of mounting attacks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, Israel formally banned it from operating on its territory in January.

The US, formerly the largest donor to UNRWA, halted funding to the agency in early 2024.

UNRWA receives assistance from other agencies UNRWA has since struggled to continue its work in Gaza, with other UN agencies including WFP and UNICEF stepping in to help compensate for a gap UNRWA says is unfillable.

“If you squeeze UNRWA out, what other agency can fill that void?” said Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of external relations and communications, on the sidelines of the Doha Forum on Saturday.

The agency has been excluded from US-led talks on Phase 2 of the ceasefire, she added.

UNRWA shut down its Jerusalem compound in May after far-right protesters, including at least one member of Israeli Parliament, overran its gate in view of the police. Israel’s far-right has pushed to turn the compound into a settlement and the country's housing minister said last year he had instructed the ministry to “examine how to return the area to the state of Israel and utilize it for housing.”

Arab World

WHO Says over 100 Killed in Attacks on Sudan Kindergarten and Hospital

Sudanese people who fled El-Fasher rest upon their arrival at the Al-Afad camp for displaced people in the town of Al-Dabba, northern Sudan, on November 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Sudanese people who fled El-Fasher rest upon their arrival at the Al-Afad camp for displaced people in the town of Al-Dabba, northern Sudan, on November 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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WHO Says over 100 Killed in Attacks on Sudan Kindergarten and Hospital

Sudanese people who fled El-Fasher rest upon their arrival at the Al-Afad camp for displaced people in the town of Al-Dabba, northern Sudan, on November 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Sudanese people who fled El-Fasher rest upon their arrival at the Al-Afad camp for displaced people in the town of Al-Dabba, northern Sudan, on November 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

More than 100 people, including dozens of children, were killed in attacks on a kindergarten in Sudan that continued even as parents and caretakers rushed the wounded to a nearby hospital, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Health facilities in Sudan have repeatedly come under attack near the frontlines of the country's 2-1/2-year civil war. A massacre also occurred in October in the city of El-Fasher, Reuters reported.

The latest attacks on December 4 began with repeated strikes on a kindergarten in South Kordofan state, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X. "Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital," he said.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks that it said were carried out by the Rapid Support Forces using drones.

The WHO database said heavy weapons were used and that 114 people, including 63 children, were killed and 35 wounded.

A WHO spokesperson said the toll combines casualties from the kindergarten strikes, the transfer of patients to the adjacent rural hospital, and attacks at the facility itself. Most children were killed in the initial strike, while parents and medics were later among the victims, he added.

The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It has previously denied harming civilians and said that it will hold its forces to account for any violations.

Survivors have since been moved to another hospital, and urgent appeals are being made for medical support and blood donations, Tedros said.