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Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares delivers a speech after receiving a state medal of merit by Palestinian Ambassador to Madrid Husni Abdel Wahed during an event at the Arab House in Madrid, Spain on February 10, 2026. [Burak Akbulut – Anadolu Agency]
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares on Friday described the European Commission’s presence at US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace inaugural meeting in Washington as a “mistake,” according to Swiss Info, citing the Spanish news agency EFE.
Albares’ remarks were made at an event in Barcelona, after Trump convened the meeting of his newly established group on Thursday, bringing together representatives from more than 20 countries to discuss the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and broader international stabilization efforts.
Although the EU declined to join the initiative, it sent Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Suica to attend the portion of the meeting dedicated to Gaza.
“It pained me to see a European Union commissioner who shouldn’t have been there,” said Albares.
While respecting Trump’s “effort,” he argued that “there are other ways” to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Albares noted that the EU backs a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict and therefore “cannot participate” in any organization that excludes the Palestinian National Authority.
He explained that the Spanish government declined the invitation to participate because the Palestinians were not included and the peace plan devised by the US “raises serious doubts about its compatibility with international law.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
US Southern Command shared on social media a 16-second clip of a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific that killed three people on February 20, 2026. (Photo: screen grab/SOUTHCOM/X)
“Demand Congress take action against these strikes now!” said Amnesty International USA.
President Donald Trump’s “summary executions continue,” Princeton University visiting professor Kenneth Roth said early Saturday after the US military announced its 43rd bombing of boaters whom the administration claimed were smuggling drugs.
Sharing a 16-second clip of the strike on social media, US Southern Command said late Friday that “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed.”
Roth, the former longtime director of Human Rights Watch, noted that “the strike raised the death toll in Trump’s campaign against people accused of drug smuggling at sea to at least 147—each a murder.” Some tallies put the death toll at 148 or 149.
Since Trump started bombing boats in September, critics have condemned the strikes as “war crimes, murder, or both.” The administration has tried to justify the operation by arguing that it is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Latin America, including Venezuela—whose president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by US forces last month and subsequently pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism charges in a federal court in New York.
Various human rights advocates and legal experts, including Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress, have rejected that argument. However, both the GOP-controlled Senate and House of Representatives have declined to pass recent war powers resolutions intended to stop Trump’s boat bombings.
“Three more people have been killed. This is murder. Demand Congress take action against these strikes now!” Amnesty International USA said on social media Saturday, sharing a form constituents can use to contact their representatives.
Multiple journalists highlighted that in this case, and others, the targeted boat appeared to be stationary when the US bombed it.
This boat was not even moving. This killing is happening every week without any legal process or proof that the boats are in fact carrying drugs to the U.S. https://t.co/evSY1s39Gs
The Friday bombing came after the US Department of Defense announced that it had killed 11 people on three boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific late Monday.
“The US military has carried out strikes every three or four days since the new leader of the Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan of the Marine Corps, took over last month after the previous commander, Adm. Alvin Holsey, abruptly retired,” the New York Timesreported. “Defense Department and congressional officials said Adm. Holsey had expressed concerns about the strikes.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Detainees are seen in a yard at the Folkston Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center on September 9, 2025, in Folkston, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/AFP/Getty Images)
The White House’s repeated claims that it is arresting the “worst of the worst” violent criminals “merely mirrors the severity and ill-natured conduct by the government,” wrote US District Judge Sunshine Sykes.
In a ruling that accused the Trump administration of “shameless” conduct in its mass deportation campaign and at one point suggested the phrase “worst of the worst”—frequently used by the Department of Homeland Security to describe immigrants it’s arrested—better describes the actions of agency officials, a federal judge on Wednesday vacated an administrative board’s decision that’s been used to detain thousands of people without providing bond hearings.
Ruling in a class action lawsuit filed by several immigrant rights groups, US District Judge Sunshine Sykes in the Central District of California threw out a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which endorsed the administration’s policy of denying bond hearings to immigrants with no criminal records who have been swept up in President Donald Trump’s mass detention campaign.
Immigration judges employed by the DOJ have used the board’s interpretation of the law to mandate the detention of thousands of immigrants.
Historically, people who have no criminal record—like many of the people arrested by federal immigration agents during Trump’s second term—are eligible to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases move through the court system, unless they were detained while trying to cross the US border.
The White House last year reversed decades of precedent by denying bond hearings to people who were in the US for years prior to their arrest.
The administration has continued denying bond hearings even after similar rulings by Sykes last year.
Sykes noted in her Wednesday ruling that immigrants across the country have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal courts to seek their release. According to the Associated Press, more than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump was inaugurated in January 2025.
The judge accused the administration of wasting “valuable time and resources” and wrote, “not only does detention without due process deprive members of the bond eligible class of their liberty, economic stability, and fundamental dignity, but it also harms their families, communities, and the fabric of this very nation.”
Sykes’ ruling “is more sweeping than decisions by hundreds of other US judges holding the policy is unlawful and ordering detainees to be freed or given bond hearings,” according toReuters.
Niels Frenzen, a law professor at University of Southern California who represented plaintiffs in the class action case, said in a statement, “We hope that DHS and the immigration courts will now comply with the court’s orders to provide bond hearings to the thousands of noncitizens who have been arrested.”
In addition to condemning the administration’s continued denial of bond hearings, Sykes excoriated the White House for perpetrating “terror” against citizens and immigrants.
“Americans have expressed deep concerns over unlawful, wanton acts by the executive branch,” wrote Sykes. “It is not the ‘worst of the worst’ that are swept into the nationwide and reckless violations of the law by the executive branch. In the past weeks, the government detained Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son without a valid warrant. Beyond its terror against noncitizens, the executive branch has extended its violence on its own citizens, killing two American citizens—Renée Good and Alex Pretti—in Minnesota. The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation.”
The judge added that “worst of the worst” is an “inaccurate description of most of those affected by DHS and [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s] operations.”
“Perhaps in utilizing this extreme language DHS seeks to justify the magnitude and scope of its operations against non-criminal noncitizens. Maybe that phrase merely mirrors the severity and ill-natured conduct by the government,” she wrote.
Press releases from DHS describing convicted criminals who have been arrested by federal agents “might contain an inkling of truth,” Sykes added, but “they ignore a greater, more dire reality.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
A Metropolitan Police sign on the side of a police vehicle
LAWYERS have submitted a formal complaint asking the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism unit to investigate current and former directors of Elbit Systems UK for complicity in war crimes.
The Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), with the support of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), has asked the force to look into four British nationals who have led the weapons manufacturer at various points since the start of the genocide in Gaza.
Their request was prompted by recent reports that key decision-makers within the government have privately recognised serious crimes and breaches of international law took place in Palestine.
Leaked private messages dating back to 2025 showed Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying he believed the Israel was “committing war crimes before our eyes.”
“Israel’s genocide in Gaza would not be possible without Elbit Systems,” a CAAT spokesperson said.
“Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest arms producer, and Israel is the single largest market for Elbit’s products. It provides 85 per cent of the combat drones used by the Israeli military.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Palestinians travel on a cart attached to a car along the coastal road in Zawaida, central Gaza Strip, February 11, 2026
PALESTINIAN journalists, previously jailed by Israel, today reported facing widespread abuse while they were in custody.
In a damning new report published by the International Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), reporters were subjected to routine beatings, starvation and sexual assault.
The CPJ said it interviewed 59 Palestinian journalists who had been imprisoned by Israel after the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. All but one reported “torture, abuse or other forms of violence.”
The alleged abuse carried out by the Israelis ranged from beatings to electroshocks. Two journalists said they had been raped while in custody.
Journalist Sami al-Sai reported being stripped by soldiers who then penetrated him with a baton in a cell in Israel’s Megiddo prison.
The CPJ report said: “Descriptions of sexual violence appeared repeatedly in the testimonies, with journalists describing assaults as intended to humiliate, terrorise and permanently scar them.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
A Metropolitan Police sign on the side of a police vehicle
