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Syrian President to Talk War, Migrants on Germany Visit

10 March 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with representatives of youth from various initiatives and sectors at the People's Palace in Damascus. Photo: APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
10 March 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with representatives of youth from various initiatives and sectors at the People's Palace in Damascus. Photo: APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Syrian President to Talk War, Migrants on Germany Visit

10 March 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with representatives of youth from various initiatives and sectors at the People's Palace in Damascus. Photo: APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
10 March 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with representatives of youth from various initiatives and sectors at the People's Palace in Damascus. Photo: APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa is visiting Germany on Monday for talks on the Middle East war, rebuilding his country and Berlin's efforts to send back Syrian refugees.

Sharaa, on his first trip to Germany since ousting Syria's longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, is expected to meet Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, reported AFP.

The Syrian leader has managed to build relations with Western governments and made several overseas trips, including to the United States, France and Russia.

As a result, many international sanctions on Syria have been lifted to help the country rebuild after its bloody 14-year civil war.

German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said Merz and Sharaa would discuss the Middle East war, Syria's political situation and reconstruction efforts, and the return of Syrians to their homeland.

While in Berlin, Sharaa will also join a political and business forum exploring "prospects for economic recovery and the reconstruction of Syria", a German foreign ministry spokesman said.

"With the lifting of numerous EU, UN and other sanctions following the end of the Assad regime, the foundations for (economic recovery) have been laid," he said.

Ahead of the visit, the German interior ministry announced a new initiative to provide support to Syria's disaster management ministry and help train emergency services.

Asked whether the talks would also address the case of German journalist Eva Maria Michelmann, who is missing in Syria, the foreign ministry spokesman said Berlin was "looking into" the matter.

- 'No grounds for asylum' -

Roughly one million Syrians fled their war-torn country for Germany in recent years, many of them arriving at the peak of the migrant influx in 2015-16 to escape the civil war.

The conservative Merz, who took power last May, has stepped up a drive to limit irregular immigration as he seeks to counter the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Merz said last year that, with Syria's civil war over, people from that country now have "no grounds for asylum in Germany".

The government in December resumed deporting criminals to Syria, though only a handful of cases have gone ahead so far.

Merz also said he assumed many Syrians would return home voluntarily, drawing criticism from campaign groups who cite continued instability and rights abuses in Syria.

Since Sharaa has been in power, sectarian tensions have continued to cause repeated bloodshed, while the ISIS group remains active.

After Assad's overthrow, Israel moved its forces into the UN-patrolled demilitarized zone on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, and has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria as well as regular incursions.

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Arab World

Israeli Death Penalty Bill for Palestinian Murder Convicts Faces Vote

Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
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Israeli Death Penalty Bill for Palestinian Murder Convicts Faces Vote

Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

Israel's parliament is expected on Monday to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military court of killing Israelis, a measure that Israel's European allies say would unfairly target Palestinians under military occupation.

The measure includes provisions requiring sentencing within 90 days with no right to clemency. It was devised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who along with other ardent supporters has worn noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote, Reuters reported.

The bill's critics say it aims at Palestinians in the West Bank by instructing military courts in the occupied territory to impose the death penalty in cases involving killings of Israelis, except in "special circumstances". Those courts only try Palestinians and have a near-100% conviction rate, rights groups say.

The vote on the bill is the latest action by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition to cause concern among Israel's allies in Europe, who have also been critical of Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Netanyahu's Likud party was expected to vote in favor of the bill. Israeli media reported that he had previously asked for some elements of the measure to be softened to head off an international backlash.

The original bill had mandated the death sentence for non-Israeli citizens in the West Bank convicted of deadly terrorist acts. The revised legislation that is up for a vote on Monday includes the option of life imprisonment.

Even before the vote on its passage, the bill drew criticism from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain, who said it had a "de facto discriminatory" character toward Palestinians.

"The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel's commitments with regards to democratic principles," the ministers said in a joint statement on Sunday.

A group of United Nations experts has said that the bill includes "vague and overbroad definitions of terrorist", meaning the death penalty could be meted out over "conduct that is not genuinely terrorist" in nature.

Ben-Gvir has argued that the death penalty would deter those considering an attack similar to the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, that killed nearly 1,200 in Israel. Israel's subsequent military assault in Gaza has killed more than 72,000.

Amnesty International, which tracks countries imposing death penalty laws, says there "is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment."

Israeli rights groups have said they will challenge the bill at Israel's Supreme Court if it becomes law.

Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.

Military courts retained the option of imposing a death sentence but have not done so so far.

Some 54 countries around the world permit the death penalty, including a handful of democracies such as the United States and Japan, according to Amnesty International. The group says that the global trend on the death penalty is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it for all crimes.

The Israeli rights group B'Tselem says that military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate and have a history of extracting confessions through torture.

Ben-Gvir, known for keeping a portrait in his living room of a Jewish gunman who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in a West Bank mosque, has overseen an overhaul of Israeli prisons that have led to widespread allegations of torture, starvation, and abuse of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel denies systematic abuse of prisoners in its jails.

Abdallah Al Zughari, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner's Club, said that Palestinians in Israeli jails had already been subject to "slow killing practices" that have led to the deaths of more than 100 prisoners since October 7, 2023.

The death penalty bill, should it become law, would pose a "major threat to the lives of detainees," Zughari said.

Arab World

Syrian Leader Pledges to Work with Germany on Migration, Recovery

Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
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Syrian Leader Pledges to Work with Germany on Migration, Recovery

Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday pledged to work with Germany to enable more Syrians to return home and rebuild their country after its devastating civil war, as he made a historic visit to Berlin.

Europe's top economy is home to the largest Syrian diaspora in the European Union at more than a million, many of whom arrived during the peak of the migrant influx in 2015-2016.

After meeting Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Sharaa said that "we are working with our friends in the German government to establish a 'circular' migration model", AFP reported.

This would "enable Syrians to contribute to the reconstruction of their homeland without giving up the stability and lives they have built here, for those who wish to stay", he said.

Merz, who has made a tougher immigration policy a priority since taking office last year, also said he and Sharaa were "working jointly towards more Syrians being able to return to their homeland".

Sharaa was speaking on his first trip to Germany since ousting his country's longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

He has managed to build relations with Western governments and made several overseas trips, including to the United States, France and Russia.

As a result, many international sanctions on Syria have been lifted to help the country rebuild after a bloody 14-year civil war.

Earlier, Sharaa told a foreign ministry forum in Berlin that Syria had experienced a "huge amount of destruction" during its long conflict, saying that Syrians "want to catch up with the rest of the world" as Germany did after World War II.

He pointed to investment opportunities in Syria's energy, transport and tourism sectors, describing his homeland as very diverse and with "a great wealth of human resources".

Merz said Germany wanted to "support" reconstruction in Syria as it struggles to rebuild after a long and bloody civil war, adding that a German government delegation would travel to the Middle Eastern country in the next few days.

However, Merz also said that he had stressed to Sharaa in their meeting "that many joint projects in the future will depend on our finding a state governed by the rule of law".

Arab World

Lebanon Judge Completes Investigation into Port Blast

A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah
A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah
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Lebanon Judge Completes Investigation into Port Blast

A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah
A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah

Lebanese judge Tarek Bitar has completed his investigation into the 2020 Beirut port blast, a years-long case that involves possible charges against dozens of people, a judicial official told AFP on Monday.

Since 2023, the investigation into the massive Beirut port explosion, which killed more than 220 people on August 4, 2020, has been in jeopardy after Hezbollah led a campaign demanding the removal of Bitar, who was later hit with dozens of lawsuits to remove him from the case.

Bitar resumed his investigation last year as Lebanon's balance of power shifted following a 2023-2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah that weakened the Iran-backed militant group.

"The investigating judge in the Beirut port explosion case, Tarek Bitar, decided to conclude his investigations into the case and referred the entire file to public prosecutor Jamal Hajjar," the official told AFP.

The number of defendants in the case reached around 70 people, including politicians, security and military officials and civil servants, according to the official.

The prosecutor will study the file and present his opinion and then refer it again to Bitar "who will issue his indictment and determine the responsibility for each of the defendants".

Bitar is supposed to "make a decision regarding about 20 defendants who appeared before him since the beginning of 2025" on whether to "detain them, set them free or conditionally release them", the official said.

Bitar has already made his decision regarding the remaining 50, including politicians and judges who refused to appear before him for questioning, according to the official.

No one is currently detained in relation to the port blast.

Lebanese authorities say the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser had been stored haphazardly for years, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.