EU foreign ministers have failed to agree on sanctions against Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says.
“Many member states have also proposed to sanction Minister Ben-Gvir, but no consensus on that was reached,” Kallas said.
Lebanon‘s Health Ministry said the cumulative toll from Israeli attacks between March 2 and June 13 has risen to 3,756 people killed and 11,632 wounded.
The figures were released by the ministry‘s Public Health Emergency Operations Center, which said the numbers reflect the overall casualties recorded during the period.
At least 3,711 people have been killed and 11,483 injured since Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon on March 2, according to figures released by Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
It was April 10, 2024, during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The Gaza civil servant had been beaten, tortured, bound and forced to soil himself since his arrest by Israeli soldiers a month earlier.
The soldiers and their guard dogs surrounded him that day. “There were six soldiers on the right and six on the left,” he recalled. “They would ask your name. If you said ‘Muhammad’, they would say, ‘No, say your name is b****.’”
Al-Bakri said he was held with seven other prisoners. They were all stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed.
“We were raped after being stripped of our clothes,” he said. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, oh God’, but they were just laughing and filming us.” Al-Bakri then echoed what several rights agencies have also reported – that guards also used dogs during the sexual abuse of prisoners. “The dogs were following commands from the officers to [attack] us,” he said.
“There was no mercy. We stayed in that state of sexual abuse and beatings for about 20 minutes to half an hour. Then they told us to get dressed and took us back to the prison.”
The Lebanese Ministry of Health says a total of 3,666 people have been killed since Israel escalated its attacks on the country on March 2.
A further 11,321 people have been wounded, according to the ministry.
Israel is committing heinous violations of international law against Palestinians and in Lebanon with impunity, and has just adopted a death penalty law targeting Palestinians. The European Union (EU) is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and must take concrete action. Italy and Germany can sway the decision to suspend the EU-Israel trade agreement. Send a message and demand Giorgia Meloni and Friedrich Merz stop greenlighting Israel’s genocide, unlawful occupation and apartheid.
(…)
Send a message and demand the leaders of Germany and Italy support suspending the EU’s trade agreement with Israel. There is no time to lose.
Wadephul’s bid won 104 votes in the UN General Assembly, falling 23 short of the two-thirds majority required for election.
This is the first time Germany has failed to win a rotating seat on the Security Council after decades of successfully securing one of the Western European seats every eight years.
„Für uns alle ist das eine wirkliche Enttäuschung. Das muss man sagen. Daran will ich nicht vorbeireden“, sagt Wadephul später im Interview mit den ARD-Tagesthemen. In der deutschen Delegation herrscht Katerstimmung. Bis zuletzt war man zuversichtlich, dass die vielen Last-Minute-Gespräche, die Wadephul seit Freitag in New York geführt hatte, ausreichen würden. Die Liste der vermeintlichen Unterstützer-Staaten schien lang genug zu sein.
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday elected Austria, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe to the 15-member U.N. Security Council for two-year terms starting on January 1, 2027.
Germany, which had lobbied hard for a seat, came third for the two places contested by the Western European and Others Group, with 104 votes, against 134 for Portugal and 131 for Austria.
(June 2, 2026)
The ministry said Europe accounted for 36 percent of the defence deals, followed by the Asia Pacific at 32 percent, the Middle East and North Africa at 15 percent, and North America at 13 percent.
(May 11, 2026)
Millions of people around the world are demanding that their leaders act to stop Israel’s violations. Humanity must win.
Millions of people around the world are demanding that their leaders act to stop Israel’s violations. Humanity must win.
(April 21, 2026)
Reacting to the EU’s failure to call for a vote to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement or to agree on any other concrete measures today at the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns said:
“At this point, the EU’s decision to maintain its trade agreement with Israel represents a moral failure and illustrates brazen contempt for civilian lives, particularly in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and in Lebanon.
“One million people in Europe, more than 75 NGOs, almost 400 former diplomats, UN experts as well as Belgium, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain have all called for the immediate suspension of the agreement. Once again, these calls have been disregarded with Germany and Italy playing a key role in blocking the suspension.
The European Union will expand the criteria of its Iran sanctions to include those responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz, two unnamed EU diplomats tell Reuters.
“There was a political agreement among ambassadors that we indeed would change the criteria in Iran’s sanctions regime so that we could also list persons and entities that are responsible for the obstruction of the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” one of the diplomats said.
Und diese Schlagzeilen dokumentieren: Ein großer Teil der Medien ist den Anforderungen, die der journalistische Beruf an sie stellt, nicht gewachsen.
Consistent with UNSC Resolution 2817, we emphasise that such interference with international shipping and the disruption of global energy supply chains constitute a threat to international peace and security.
Yes, but: France, Germany, Italy and Japan have previously all publicly ruled out sending naval vessels to the strait during the war.
(May 9, 2025)
Die Linke hat die Demokratie gerettet, weil sie Friedrich Merz‘ Kanzlerschaft ermöglicht hat. So jedenfalls rechtfertigt sie sich. Diese »linke« Partei ist der größte Etikettenschwindel in diesem Lande überhaupt.
(March 3, 2026)
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office alongside Merz, told reporters that Germany had been „helping out“ by allowing US forces to access certain bases, and drew a sharp contrast to the actions of two other European countries: Britain and Spain.
Merz said Germany and the United States shared a desire to get rid of Iran‘s current regime and said he would discuss with Trump what happened once the military operation ended.
„We are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Iran away, and we will talk about the day after,“ Merz said, adding he would also speak with Trump about Russia‘s war in Ukraine and the US-European Union trade agreement.
(March 3, 2026)
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office alongside Merz, told reporters that Germany had been „helping out“ by allowing U.S. forces to access certain bases, and drew a sharp contrast to the actions of two other European countries: Britain and Spain.
“States claiming to uphold human rights, justice and the rule of law should invest their time and energy in holding to account perpetrators of egregious human rights violations, rather than targeting those investigating and exposing international crimes in an objective way,” the Committee said.
The Committee reminded States that the Special Rapporteur is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to “investigate Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War … in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.”
“Instead of demanding Ms Albanese’s resignation for performing her mandate in very challenging circumstances – including persistent intimidation, coordinated personal attacks and unlawful unilateral sanctions – these Government representatives should join forces to hold accountable, including before the International Criminal Court, leaders and officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza,” the Committee said.
The UN Coordination Committee – a body of six independent experts which coordinates and facilitates the work of Special Rapporteurs – accused European ministers of relying on „manufactured facts“.
„Instead of demanding Ms Albanese‘s resignation for performing her mandate…these government representatives should join forces to hold accountable, including before the International Criminal Court, leaders and officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza,“ the Committee said.
(February 12, 2026)
“I respect the UN system of independent rapporteurs. However, Ms Albanese has made numerous inappropriate remarks in the past. I condemn her recent statements about Israel. She is untenable in her position,” Wadephul writes on X.
Wadephul’s French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot made the same call yesterday for Albanese to resign, over the same comments.
Speaking via videoconference at a forum Saturday in Doha, Qatar, organized by the Al Jazeera network, Albanese referred to a “common enemy” that enabled the “genocide” in Gaza.
Zweierlei Maß: Es gehört zum festen Standard in der Politik. Ohne Unterlass zeigen deutsche Politiker auf Russland wegen des Angriffs auf die Ukraine. Beim Angriff der USA auf Venezuela und der Entführung Nicolás Maduros sind plötzlich alle sehr kleinlaut. Vonseiten des Bundeskanzlers heißt es: „Die rechtliche Einordnung des US-Einsatzes ist komplex.“ Das Jahr 2026 beginnt auf der politischen Ebene mit einer „Wertegemeinschaft“, die sich mit heruntergelassenen Hosen der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert – und glaubt, es werde nicht bemerkt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are holding an expanded meeting with senior officials at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, following their one-on-one meeting this morning, the PMO says in a statement.