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SvennoJ 15 hours ago
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French court overturns ban on Israeli companies at defence fair

A commercial court in Paris has ruled against a decision by the French government to ban Israeli companies that supply the wars in Gaza and Lebanon from exhibiting their hardware at the Euronaval defence fair.

The court said organisers of the fair cannot keep Israeli companies from exhibiting at the event based on their nationality and ordered the suspension of “the execution of the measures adopted against” the firms, according to the AFP news agency and The Times of Israel newspaper.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz hailed the ruling as a “significant victory” against the French government’s “unjust and undemocratic decision”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had said earlier that the measure did not amount to a boycott of Israeli firms, but that it would be “incoherent” for France to allow the promotion of weapons used in the wars while it also pushes for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. He had said companies that whose equipment is not used in offensive actions in Gaza and Lebanon will be able to have stands at the exhibition.


UK court rules in favour of student stripped of visa over October 7 comments

A UK court has ruled that the Home Office failed to demonstrate that a Palestinian law student’s presence was “not conducive to public good” over comments on the October 7 attacks on Israel.

Dana Abu Qamar, a 20-year-old dual Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin, had said: “For 16 years Gaza has been under blockade, and for the first time they are actively resisting, they are not on the defence, and this is truly a once in a lifetime experience.”

She had also said “we are full of pride”, prompting British authorities to revoke her student visa in December 2023.

Now, the tribunal has said the government decision was a “disproportionate interference with her protected right to free speech” under the European Convention on Human Rights, according to The Guardian.


Palestine Foreign Ministry condemns illegal Israeli settlement expansion

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it is following up with relevant international bodies and courts a move by Israeli authorities to seize 64 dunams of Palestinian land from the village of Umm Tuba in the West Bank’s occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities plan to build settlements there, which the Palestinian ministry said in a statement is part of “a long series of illegal, unilateral measures taken by the occupation in its race against time to annex and Judaise Jerusalem, separating it entirely from its Palestinian surroundings”.

It added that the move fits into Israel’s “accelerated plans to annex the occupied West Bank”.

“The ministry believes that the occupation is trying to undermine the international consensus on a two-state solution by imposing more colonial and racist facts on the ground, accompanied by forced displacement and extermination, aiming to determine the future of the conflict in line with Israeli interests.”