A British police officer has been charged with a terrorism offense for allegedly publishing an image in support of Hamas, a group banned in Britain as a terrorist organization, police said on Wednesday.

Mohammed Adil, 26, from Bradford in northern England, was arrested last November and charged following an investigation by British counter-terrorism officers, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said in a statement.

The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said the inquiries had focused on messages shared on WhatsApp which had concluded the case should be referred to prosecutors.

“On Monday, PC Mohammed Adil, 26, was charged with two counts of publishing an image in support of a proscribed organization, specifically Hamas, contrary to section 13 of the Terrorism Act,” the IOPC statement said. “The offenses are alleged to have taken place in October and November 2023.”

Adil, a police constable, has been suspended from his job with West Yorkshire Police and is due to appear before London Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, police have arrested and charged a number of people at pro-Hamas protests in London for showing support for the group, while counter-terrorism commanders say they have also had a large amount of online content referred to them.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, pushing to get more aid into Gaza, while urging Hamas to accept a deal that would halt fighting and bring some hostages home from the enclave.

Israel is the final stop on the top US diplomat’s Middle East tour, his seventh visit to the region which was plunged into conflict on Oct. 7 when Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group, attacked southern Israel.

Illustrating the trip’s humanitarian focus, Blinken will visit Ashdod port in the south, which has recently started receiving aid for Gaza. He will ask Israel‘s government to take a set of specific steps to facilitate aid to Gaza, the neighboring Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas.

During a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem lasting about 2 and 1/2 hours, Blinken noted improvement in delivering aid “and reiterated the importance of accelerating and sustaining that improvement,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

The United States is Israel‘s main diplomatic supporter and weapons supplier. Blinken‘s check-in with Netanyahu on aid comes about a month after US President Joe Biden issued a stark warning that Washington’s policy could shift if Israel didn’t taken certain steps to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The Jewish state had already been allowing a significant amount of humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza since October, and that aid has increased since Biden’s threat.

On Wednesday, Blinken also reiterated the US position that Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group widely proscribed in the West, was “standing in the way of a ceasefire,” Miller said.

The US diplomat has urged Hamas to accept an “extraordinarily generous” truce deal proposed by Egyptian mediators, which would see 33 hostages released in exchange for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners and a halt to the fighting, with the possibility of further steps towards a comprehensive deal later.

A senior official for Hamas said the group was still studying the proposed deal but accused Blinken of failing to respect both sides and described Israel as the real obstacle.

“Blinken‘s comments contradict reality,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Blinken‘s trip to Israel comes amid growing speculation that Israel will soon launch a long-promised assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which Israel has described as a last bastion of Hamas.

While facing international calls to hold off on any Rafah offensive due to the potential for civilian casualties, Netanyahu has said Israel is determined to enter Rafah to eliminate Hamas.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 others in its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. The hostages are mostly Israeli but include some foreign nationals.

In response, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it could no longer pose a major threat to the Israeli people from the neighboring enclave.

The first shipments of aid directly from Jordan to northern Gaza‘s newly opened Erez crossing were to start on Tuesday, goods were also arriving via the port of Ashdod, and a new maritime corridor would be ready in about a week, Blinken said.

The post In Israel, Blinken Pushes Netanyahu for Sustained Aid Into Gaza, Says Hamas Blocking Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

i24 News — The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has rejected Nicaragua’s request to issue emergency orders to Germany, urging it to cease arms sales to Israel.

The decision, made by a vote of 15 to 1, was announced on Tuesday, dealing a blow to Nicaragua’s efforts to halt what it perceived as facilitation of acts of genocide.

The judgment, delivered in The Hague, cited several factors for the rejection, including a notable decrease in recent German arms sales to Israel, the defensive nature of the weapons sold, and Germany’s robust internal processes to assess if arms could be used for war crimes or genocide.

Nicaragua had filed a case at the ICJ last month, accusing Germany of aiding Israel in acts of genocide in Gaza. However, Germany vehemently refuted these accusations, asserting that its support for Israel’s security is a fundamental aspect of its foreign policy.

The court’s scrutiny revealed that only a limited number of war weapons licenses had been granted by the German government, with the majority pertaining to defensive military equipment.

Furthermore, it acknowledged that Germany’s contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are voluntary, dismissing Nicaragua’s contention that funding should be obligatory.

This legal battle echoes South Africa’s recent case against Israel at the ICJ, where similar accusations of genocide in Gaza were leveled. While the ICJ urged Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts, it did not mandate an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Following South Africa’s legal action, Germany announced its intervention as a third party in the case, asserting that Israel has not committed genocide.

Nicaragua, previously seeking to join South Africa’s case against Israel, argued that Israel’s conduct violates its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

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