World
EU reaches 'political agreement' to sanction Israeli settlers: Borrell
After weeks of disagreements, the European Union has reached a “political agreement” to sanction extremist Israeli settlers, says Josep Borrell.
The breakthrough occurred during a meeting of the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers on Monday, where the issue was put on the table to give diplomacy a new chance.
“We discussed about the sanctions (on) Hamas. And we agreed on sanctions on extremist settlers. It was not possible last Foreign Affairs Council. This time has been possible. A solid compromise has been agreed at the working level and I hope this will continue until full adoption soon,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief announced at the end of the meeting. “But the political agreement is there.”
The sanctions have been in the works for months and were initially held up by a handful of countries, including Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, who are among the bloc’s staunchest supporters of Israel.
But the devastation wrought across the Gaza Strip and the continued reports of violence perpetrated by Israeli nationals against Palestinians injected a sense of urgency into the talks, which further deepened after the United States, the United Kingdom and France went ahead and sanctioned a handful of extremist settlers.
The final roadblock was Hungary, which, according to diplomats, communicated last week that it would lift the opposition, raising hopes for a breakthrough on Monday.
The political agreement still requires a final adoption by ambassadors before entering into force. Settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and are considered a major obstacle to achieving a durable peace under the two-state solution.
The sanctions are “about specific people who have been identified as responsible for violent acts,” Borrell told reporters, confirming the restrictions will consist of a travel ban and the freezing of assets owned in EU territory. “What else can we do? We always sanction individuals and organisations in the same way.”
Asked about the names of the blacklisted settlers, Borrell added: “Like the Quixote would say, I don’t want to remember.”
The decision was part of a careful diplomatic choreography to coincide with fresh sanctions against Hamas, which the bloc considers a terrorist organisation.
In reaction to the attacks of 7 October, which killed over 1,100 civilians in Israel, the EU established a dedicated sanctions regime to target any individual or entity suspected of supporting, materially or financially, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Six financiers were added to the blacklist on 19 January.
‘Open-air graveyard’
Monday’s meeting of foreign affairs ministers took place as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released a new report showcasing the extreme gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 31,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli offensive.
According to the IPC, “the entire population in the Gaza Strip (2.23 million) is facing high levels of acute food insecurity,” with half the population under the category of catastrophe. In the northern section of the enclave, famine is “imminent.”
The military conflict, the scarcity of humanitarian aid and the limited access to food supplies, healthcare, water and sanitation are all factors behind the deterioration.
“The escalation of hostilities has caused widespread damage to assets and infrastructure indispensable to survival. About 50 percent of buildings – and more than 70 percent in the northern governorates – have been damaged or destroyed,” the report says.
Before heading into the meeting, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, painted a grim picture of the situation on the ground.
“Gaza was before the war the greatest open-air prison. Today it is the greatest open-air graveyard. A graveyard for tens of thousands of people, and also a graveyard for many of the most important principles of humanitarian law,” Borrell told reporters.
Borrell also said he would propose a “political orientation debate” about the future of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which has been in force since 2000. Last month, Spain and Ireland, two of the bloc’s most critical voices against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joined forces and called for an “urgent review” of the agreement.
But during the ministerial meeting, at least six member states came against the review: Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Hungary, several diplomats told Euronews, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Borrell admitted convening a formal Association Council with Israel would be “certainly complicated” and lacked “strong support.” A more practical idea would be to invite Israel’s foreign affairs minister, Israel Katz, to the next meeting in Brussels.
The invitation, Borrell added, should also be extended to the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammad Mustafa.
This article has been updated with more information.
World
Brussels, my love? MEPs check out of Strasbourg after 5 eventful years
This edition comes to you from Strasbourg where MEPs voted on no fewer than 90 files.
Our guests this week include Robert Biedron, Polish MEP from the Socialist group, Deirdre Clune, outgoing Irish MEP from the European People’s Party and Jaume Duch, the spokesperson for the European Parliament.
The panel picked apart the highs and lows of the last 5 years at the European Parliament. From sealing deals on a migration pact after a decade of debate and the world’s first ever AI regulations, MEPs sounded satisfied that a lot of compromises had been clinched but still concerned about the major inequalities across Europe.
Jaume Duch hopes people will vote this June.
“Now it’s about the future of the continent, not just the European Union, the continent. Citizens need to know that this time it’s about how we are going to shape our future, not just for the next five years, maybe even ten or more, depending on the result of European elections.”
Watch ‘Brussels, my love?’ in the player above.
World
Marla Adams, Who Played Dina on The Young and the Restless, Dead at 85
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World
Hacktivist group claims it infiltrated Belarus security agency
A Belarusian hacker activist group claims to have infiltrated the network of the country’s main KGB security agency and accessed personnel files of over 8,600 employees of the organization, which still goes under its Soviet name.
The authorities have not commented on the claim, but the website of the Belarusian KGB was opening with an empty page on Friday that said it was “in the process of development”.
Seeking to back up its claim, the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans group published a list of the website’s administrators, its database and server logs on its page in the messaging app Telegram.
BELARUS SAYS IT THWARTED ATTEMPTED LITHUANIAN DRONE STRIKES; VILNIUS REBUFFS CLAIMS
Group coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told The Associated Press from New York that the attack on the KGB “was a response” to the agency’s chief Ivan Tertel, who publicly accused the group this week of plotting attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure, including a nuclear power plant.
“The KGB is carrying out the largest political repressions in the history of the country and must answer for it,” said Shametavets. “We work to save the lives of Belarusians, and not to destroy them, like the repressive Belarusian special services do.”
Shametavets said the group was able to access the KGB’s network “several years ago” and has been trying to hack its website and database ever since. Once it succeeded, she said Cyber-Partisans was able to download personal files of more than 8,600 KGB employees. да нет
Based on that data, Cyber-Partisans launched a chat bot on Telegram that would allow Belarusians to identify KGB operatives by uploading their photos.
“We want to show that in the digital world it is impossible to hide information, and the truth about political repressions will surface, and those who carried them out will be punished,” Shametavets said.
Last week, Cyber-Partisans claimed infiltrating computers at the country’s largest fertilizer plant to pressure the government to release political prisoners. The state-run Grodno Azot plant has made no comment on the claim but its website has been unavailable since April 17.
Grodno Azot, with about 7,500 employees, is a key producer in the country, which relies heavily on chemical industries.
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, was rocked by mass protests after an election in 2020 that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term in office — a vote that was denounced by the West and the opposition as fraudulent. Authorities responded by arresting more than 35,000 people and brutally beating thousands of them. Many top opposition figures were arrested and given long prison terms, while others fled abroad.
The country’s oldest and most prominent rights group Viasna says nearly 1,400 people are political prisoners in Belarus, including its founder and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.
Cyber-Partisans have carried out several large-scale attacks on Belarusian state media in the last four years, and in 2022 hacked Belarusian Railways three times, hijacking control over its traffic lights and control system and paralyzing transit of the Russian military equipment into Ukraine via Belarus.
“We’re telling the Belarusian authorities that if they don’t stop political repressions, it will get worse,” Shametavets said. “We will continue the attacks in order to inflict that maximum harm of the Lukashenko regime.”
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