Malaysia urges ASEAN to speak up for Palestine
Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan has condemned Israel’s “atrocities” in Gaza and called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to speak up for Palestinians.
His comments come ahead of the regional bloc’s summit in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
“The atrocities committed against the Palestinian people continue to reflect indifference and double standards,” Mohamad told his ASEAN counterparts. “They are a direct result of the erosion of the sanctity of international law,” he said.
“ASEAN cannot remain silent,” he added. The 10-member regional bloc had previously asserted its “longstanding support” for Palestinian rights in February.
Spain to host Madrid Group meeting on Gaza war
Foreign ministers from European and Middle Eastern nations are set to meet in the Spanish capital, Madrid, later today as part of efforts to step up pressure on Israel to end its war on Gaza.
The talks – which will bring together diplomats from Spain, Norway, Slovenia, Ireland, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar and Bahrain – will be the fifth meeting of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group or the Madrid Group.
“We want to mobilise the voices of the EU but also those outside the European Union in Arab and Islamic countries,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told the El País newspaper last week.
“We all want the same thing: to end this war, prevent Gaza from becoming a mass graveyard, and break the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid,” he said.
The talks will also include discussions on an upcoming international conference on the two-state solution, which is set to take place at UN headquarters in New York in June. That conference will be co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France.
Peru opens criminal investigation into Israeli soldier over direct role in Gaza genocide
Peru has formally opened a criminal investigation into an Israeli national accused of participating in the genocide in Gaza, according to the Hind Rajab Foundation and human rights lawyer Julio Cesar Arbizu Gonzalez, who filed the complaint.
According to the foundation, the individual being investigated in Peru was a combat engineering soldier who played a direct role in the destruction of civilian neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip.
Gonzalez said in a post on X that “Peru has an international obligation to prosecute these crimes under universal jurisdiction”, after the soldier flew into an airport in the Peruvian capital Lima.
Lebanon to ‘liberate’ all of its lands from Israeli occupation: Prime minister
Today is Resistance and Liberation Day in Lebanon, a holiday to mark the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon 25 years ago.
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said in a statement that “our joy will not be complete until all our lands are liberated from the Israeli occupation”. He promised that his government would remain faithful to the following principles:
- The necessity of taking all necessary measures to liberate Lebanese territories from Israeli occupation and extend the state’s sovereignty over all its territories, with its own forces, in accordance with what was stated in the 1989 Taif Agreement that ended the country’s civil war.
- Lebanon’s right to self-defence in the event of any aggression, in accordance with the United Nations Charter.
- Reconstructing what was destroyed by the Israeli aggression by mobilising Arab and international support to achieve this.
