Spain on Thursday announced its decision to probe Israel’s rights violations in the Gaza Strip in support of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ongoing investigation into the regime’s war crimes against Palestinians during the nearly two-year-long genocidal war.
The office of Spanish Attorney General Alvaro Garcia Ortiz said he had issued a ‘decree’ to set up ‘a working team’ tasked with investigating violations of international human rights law in Gaza.
The team will ‘gather evidence and make it available to the competent body, thereby fulfilling Spain’s obligations regarding international cooperation and human rights.
‘Faced with the current situation in the Palestinian territories, all evidence, direct or indirect, that can be gathered in our country’ on crimes committed in the besieged territory must be included for potential use in the ICC case.
The ICC has an ongoing investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied territories.
In November 2024, the Hague-based tribunal issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the genocide in Gaza.
The ruling obliged all the 125 countries, which signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, to detain and surrender the pair to the ICC.
Spain had also joined a case brought by South Africa before another world court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which says Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip are genocidal in character.
The occupying regime waged its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023. Since then, it has killed at least 65,141 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 165,925 others.
- Scores of extremist Jewish settlers desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem on Thursday morning, amid tight restrictions on the entry of Muslim worshippers to the holy site.
At least 138 settlers entered the Mosque through its Maghariba Gate and toured its courtyards under police protection.
During their tours at the Islamic holy site, the settlers received lectures from rabbis about the alleged temple mount and a number of them provocatively performed prayers in the eastern area of the Mosque.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation police imposed movement and entry restrictions on Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s entrances and gates and prevented many of them from entering the holy site.
Israeli occupation forces installed a metal barrier on Thursday at the entrance of a road connecting the village of Harmala to the town of Tuqu’, southeast of Bethlehem, effectively restricting Palestinian movement in the area.
The installation of the gate further limits access for residents who rely on the road for daily transportation, including access to schools, workplaces, and medical services.
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission has previously reported that the total number of military checkpoints and metal barriers erected by the Israeli army across the occupied West Bank has now surpassed 900.
Since the beginning of this year alone, 18 new metal barriers have been installed.
These barriers and checkpoints are part of a broader Israeli policy that imposes heavy restrictions on Palestinian movement, contributing to economic hardship and undermining basic human rights. Human rights organisations have consistently criticised the use of such infrastructure as a form of collective punishment.
- Israeli culture minister Miki Zohar has cut funding for the regime’s film academy and its most prestigious awards ceremony, after a movie about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy’s dream of seeing the ocean won the best feature film prize.
In a statement on social media, Zohar, a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, announced that he was suspending funding for the ceremony because he characterised the film as having a pro-Palestinian inclination and portraying Israeli soldiers unfavourably.
In his statement he said: ‘On my watch, the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on Israeli soldiers.
‘The citizens of Israel deserve for their tax money to go to more important and valuable places.’
Later on Wednesday, Zohar took another swipe at the Ophir Awards, claiming it promotes ‘foreign, disconnected narratives against Israel and Israeli soldiers’.
On Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awarded the 2025 Best Picture award to ‘The Sea’ at the Ophir Awards.
The film, directed and authored by Shai Carmeli Pollak and produced by Baher Agbariya, narrates the story of a young boy’s journey from his home in Ramallah, situated in the occupied West Bank, to the coastal city of Tel Aviv in the Israeli-occupied territories.
‘The Sea’ garnered four other accolades, including the best actor award for 13-year-old Muhammad Ghazawi, who made history as the youngest individual to receive the recognition. Additionally, Khalifa Natour, who plays the role of the boy’s father, won the best supporting actor award.
Last year, the joint Israeli-Palestinian documentary ‘No Other Land’ won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
The film looks at efforts by Palestinian activists to prevent the Israeli military from demolishing their community at the village of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli regime’s reaction was strongly negative, with Zohar calling the win ‘a regrettable moment for the cinematic world’ and depicting the film as ‘sabotage’ against Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, two Israelis were killed on Thursday in a shooting attack near the Allenby Bridge crossing (known to Palestinians as the Karamah crossing) east of the occupied West Bank.
The attacker was killed in an exchange of fire with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).
According to the Israeli media the driver was a Jordanian truck driver transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza.
They reported that the driver opened fire on occupation soldiers stationed at the crossing, before attempting a stabbing attack.
The Allenby Bridge is one of three official crossings linking Jordan with the occupied West Bank, alongside Sheikh Hussein Bridge in the north and the Wadi Araba crossing in the south. Palestinians call it ‘Karamah crossing’ in honour of the 1968 Battle of Karamah, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian stand against an Israeli military incursion.
The crossing serves as the primary point of movement for people and goods between Jordan and the West Bank, with dozens of aid trucks, commercial vehicles, and passenger buses passing daily under IOF control, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority and Jordanian authorities.
The attack comes nearly a year after a similar operation carried out by Jordanian national Maher al-Jazi, who killed three Israeli security personnel in September 2024 along Route 90 near the Karamah crossing in the Jordan Valley.Spain on Thursday announced its decision to probe Israel’s rights violations in the Gaza Strip in support of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ongoing investigation into the regime’s war crimes against Palestinians during the nearly two-year-long genocidal war.
The office of Spanish Attorney General Alvaro Garcia Ortiz said he had issued a ‘decree’ to set up ‘a working team’ tasked with investigating violations of international human rights law in Gaza.
The team will ‘gather evidence and make it available to the competent body, thereby fulfilling Spain’s obligations regarding international cooperation and human rights.
‘Faced with the current situation in the Palestinian territories, all evidence, direct or indirect, that can be gathered in our country’ on crimes committed in the besieged territory must be included for potential use in the ICC case.
The ICC has an ongoing investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied territories.
In November 2024, the Hague-based tribunal issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the genocide in Gaza.
The ruling obliged all the 125 countries, which signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, to detain and surrender the pair to the ICC.
Spain had also joined a case brought by South Africa before another world court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which says Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip are genocidal in character.
The occupying regime waged its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023. Since then, it has killed at least 65,141 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 165,925 others.
- Scores of extremist Jewish settlers desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem on Thursday morning, amid tight restrictions on the entry of Muslim worshippers to the holy site.
At least 138 settlers entered the Mosque through its Maghariba Gate and toured its courtyards under police protection.
During their tours at the Islamic holy site, the settlers received lectures from rabbis about the alleged temple mount and a number of them provocatively performed prayers in the eastern area of the Mosque.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation police imposed movement and entry restrictions on Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s entrances and gates and prevented many of them from entering the holy site.
Israeli occupation forces installed a metal barrier on Thursday at the entrance of a road connecting the village of Harmala to the town of Tuqu’, southeast of Bethlehem, effectively restricting Palestinian movement in the area.
The installation of the gate further limits access for residents who rely on the road for daily transportation, including access to schools, workplaces, and medical services.
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission has previously reported that the total number of military checkpoints and metal barriers erected by the Israeli army across the occupied West Bank has now surpassed 900.
Since the beginning of this year alone, 18 new metal barriers have been installed.
These barriers and checkpoints are part of a broader Israeli policy that imposes heavy restrictions on Palestinian movement, contributing to economic hardship and undermining basic human rights. Human rights organisations have consistently criticised the use of such infrastructure as a form of collective punishment.
- Israeli culture minister Miki Zohar has cut funding for the regime’s film academy and its most prestigious awards ceremony, after a movie about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy’s dream of seeing the ocean won the best feature film prize.
In a statement on social media, Zohar, a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, announced that he was suspending funding for the ceremony because he characterised the film as having a pro-Palestinian inclination and portraying Israeli soldiers unfavourably.
In his statement he said: ‘On my watch, the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on Israeli soldiers.
‘The citizens of Israel deserve for their tax money to go to more important and valuable places.’
Later on Wednesday, Zohar took another swipe at the Ophir Awards, claiming it promotes ‘foreign, disconnected narratives against Israel and Israeli soldiers’.
On Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awarded the 2025 Best Picture award to ‘The Sea’ at the Ophir Awards.
The film, directed and authored by Shai Carmeli Pollak and produced by Baher Agbariya, narrates the story of a young boy’s journey from his home in Ramallah, situated in the occupied West Bank, to the coastal city of Tel Aviv in the Israeli-occupied territories.
‘The Sea’ garnered four other accolades, including the best actor award for 13-year-old Muhammad Ghazawi, who made history as the youngest individual to receive the recognition. Additionally, Khalifa Natour, who plays the role of the boy’s father, won the best supporting actor award.
Last year, the joint Israeli-Palestinian documentary ‘No Other Land’ won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
The film looks at efforts by Palestinian activists to prevent the Israeli military from demolishing their community at the village of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli regime’s reaction was strongly negative, with Zohar calling the win ‘a regrettable moment for the cinematic world’ and depicting the film as ‘sabotage’ against Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, two Israelis were killed on Thursday in a shooting attack near the Allenby Bridge crossing (known to Palestinians as the Karamah crossing) east of the occupied West Bank.
The attacker was killed in an exchange of fire with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).
According to the Israeli media the driver was a Jordanian truck driver transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza.
They reported that the driver opened fire on occupation soldiers stationed at the crossing, before attempting a stabbing attack.
The Allenby Bridge is one of three official crossings linking Jordan with the occupied West Bank, alongside Sheikh Hussein Bridge in the north and the Wadi Araba crossing in the south. Palestinians call it ‘Karamah crossing’ in honour of the 1968 Battle of Karamah, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian stand against an Israeli military incursion.
The crossing serves as the primary point of movement for people and goods between Jordan and the West Bank, with dozens of aid trucks, commercial vehicles, and passenger buses passing daily under IOF control, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority and Jordanian authorities.
The attack comes nearly a year after a similar operation carried out by Jordanian national Maher al-Jazi, who killed three Israeli security personnel in September 2024 along Route 90 near the Karamah crossing in the Jordan Valley.
