JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right national security minister on Friday sparred with US supermodel Bella Hadid over his comments this week that Palestinians condemned as racist.
In an interview with N12 News on Wednesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir said that the right to life and movement for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank trumped the right to movement for Palestinians.

DUBAI: The US State Department has strongly condemned Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, for what it described as “inflammatory comments” he made about Palestinians, and said that it denounces “all racist rhetoric.”
Ben-Gvir said during an interview on Israeli TV on Wednesday that his rights in the occupied West Bank are more important than those of Palestinians. His comments sparked a storm of protest online as video clips of his comments spread on social media, the BBC reported on Friday.

TRIPOLI: Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army has launched a military operation to secure the southern border, it said on Friday, after fighting near the area resumed between the government of Chad and a rebel group trying to unseat it.
Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby said on Sunday that the army was again fighting the Libya-based Chadian Front for Change and Concord or FACT group, which quit a ceasefire last week amid clashes.

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities on Friday announced the arrest at Beirut Airport of “a spy cell working for the Israeli enemy.”

The cell comprised two individuals attempting to leave Lebanon, said Brig. Gen. Elias Al-Baysari, acting director general of General Security.

He added: “These individuals have connections with the enemy and were tasked with missions inside the country.

“We have interrogated and handed them over to the competent military judiciary, and we will reveal the danger of this network in subsequent statements.”

BEIRUT: A three-year probe against Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and his family over corruption allegations has been closed by Monaco’s judicial authorities for lack of evidence, the premier’s office said Friday.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s office said that Morgan Raymond, the deputy public prosecutor in Monaco, told the Lebanese premier’s legal team that they have closed the investigation into the case that was raised by unspecified Lebanese plaintiffs on allegations of illicit enrichment and money laundering.