Category World News

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says she has been accused of “complicity in genocide” in a complaint lodged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Rome’s support for Israel as it bombards Gaza.

Meloni made the statement during an interview with state television company RAI, in the first public comment on the situation, which has not been confirmed by the international court.

Meloni said Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani have also been “denounced”, referring to when the court is officially alerted to a possible crime. She said that she believes that Roberto Cingolani, head of Italian weapons and aerospace company Leonardo, might also have been named.

The complaint, dated October 1, was signed by some 50 people, including law professors, lawyers, and several public figures who accused Meloni and others of complicity by supplying arms to Israel, according to the AFP news agency.

“By supporting the Israeli government, particularly through the supply of lethal weapons, the Italian government has become complicit in the ongoing genocide and the extremely serious war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people,” the authors of the court filing against the Italian leaders wrote.

The Palestinian advocacy group behind the complaint naming Meloni is calling for the court to assess the possibility of opening a formal investigation into the charge of genocide against the Italian prime minister, AFP also reported.

Last month, a UN Independent Inquiry found that Israel’s war on Gaza is a genocide, adding to similar assessments from a broad range of experts in human rights, genocide and international law.

The ICC has outstanding arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including starvation, murder and persecution.

However, neither Netanyahu nor Gallant has been charged with genocide specifically.

The ICC also issued arrest warrants for Hamas officials; however, those named have all since been killed in Israeli attacks.

“I don’t think there is another case in the world or in history of a complaint of this kind,” Meloni said of the complaint against her in the televised comments.

‘Major arms’ exports

According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Italy was one of only three countries to export “major conventional arms” to Israel from 2020 to 2024, although the United States and Germany were responsible for 99 percent of the exports of the larger weapons category, which include aircraft, missiles, tanks and air defence systems.

The major arms that Italy provided to Israel in this period included light helicopters and naval guns, SIPRI said. It is also one of several countries involved in making parts for F-35 fighter jets, under a US-led programme, SIPRI added.

“Concerns about the potential use of the F-35 by Israel to carry out violations of international humanitarian law have led to much criticism of transfers of the aircraft or its parts to Israel,” SIPRI said in a recent report.

Italy’s Defence Minister Guido Crosetto has said that Italy is only sending deliveries of arms to Israel under contracts signed before October 7, 2023 and that Italy has sought assurances from Israel that the weapons would not be used against civilians in Gaza, after Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani had earlier claimed Italy had stopped sending the weapons altogether.

Meloni’s acknowledgement of the complaint against her comes as hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in mass protests against Israel’s war on Gaza in recent weeks.

Italy’s major labour unions have actively supported the protests. The country’s dockworkers have threatened strike action over Israeli forces preventing the Sumud Global Flotilla from delivering aid to Gaza.

Following earlier protests, Meloni’s government sent naval ships to accompany the fleet of international vessels, but the Italian navy pulled back before Israeli forces intercepted the boats in international waters and detained close to 500 international activists.

Six crew members remained in Israeli detention as of Tuesday, according to the flotilla’s organisers.

Mounting legal challenges

The latest complaints against Italian leaders join a growing number of legal challenges to Israel’s actions in Gaza, alongside the ICC case against Netanyahu and Gallant.

At the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa has submitted a case against Israel, accusing it of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

In April this year, the ICJ ruled against pursuing a case brought by Nicaragua that accused Germany of aiding genocide in Gaza for its role in selling arms to Israel.

The US, which is the largest exporter of weapons to Israel, is not a member of the ICC.

It has also actively pushed back against the ICC pursuing charges against Israel.

Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US was imposing sanctions on three Palestinian human rights organisations, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, for engaging in efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals” at the ICC.

President Macron under pressure as parliamentary paralysis persists.

National Guard troops from Texas have arrived in the US state of Illinois, ahead of a planned deployment to Chicago that is strongly opposed by local officials.

The arrival of the troops on Tuesday is the latest escalation by the administration of United States President Donald Trump in its crackdown on the country’s third-largest city, and comes despite active legal challenges from Chicago and the state of Illinois making their way through the courts.

The Guard’s exact mission was not immediately clear, though the Trump administration has an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, and protesters have frequently rallied at an immigration building outside the city in Broadview, Illinois.

The president repeatedly has described Chicago in hostile terms, calling it a “hellhole” of crime, although police statistics show significant drops in most crimes, including homicides.

“If you look at Chicago, Chicago is a great city where there’s a lot of crime, and if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job,” Trump said on Tuesday of his decision to send the National Guard to the city against the wishes of state leadership. “It’s all very simple.”

There were likely “50 murders in Chicago over the last 5, 6, 7 months”, the president has claimed – although, according to government data, Chicago saw a 33 percent reduction in homicides in the first six months of 2025 and a 38 percent reduction in shootings.

Trump has also ordered Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, following earlier deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC. In each case, he has done so despite staunch opposition from mayors and governors from the Democratic Party, who say Trump’s claims of lawlessness and violence do not reflect reality.

A federal judge in September said the Republican-led administration “willfully” broke federal law by putting Guard troops in Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the president’s strategy is “unconstitutional, it’s illegal and it’s dangerous”.

Illinois and Chicago sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to block orders to federalise 300 Illinois Guard troops and send Texas Guard troops to Chicago. During a hearing, US Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge that Texas Guard troops were already in transit to Illinois.

The judge, April Perry, permitted the deployment to proceed for now, but ordered the US government to file a response by Wednesday.

Separately, a federal judge in Oregon on Sunday temporarily blocked the administration from sending any troops to police Portland, the state’s largest city.

The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid its escalation in immigration enforcement.

“These Democrats are, like, insurrectionists, OK?” the president said Tuesday. “They’re so bad for our country. Their policy is so bad for our country.”

Officials in Illinois and Oregon, however, say military intervention isn’t needed and that federal involvement is inflaming the situation.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, accused Trump of intentionally trying to foment violence, which the president could then use to justify further militarisation.

“Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarise our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said on Monday.

“There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security,” Democratic Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has said.

What is the Insurrection Act, and can Trump invoke it?

When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump made it clear that he’s considering invoking the Insurrection Act to clear the way for him to send soldiers to US cities.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that,” Trump said on Monday.

The federal law dates back to 1807 and gives the US president the power to deploy the military or federalise National Guard troops anywhere in the US to restore order during an insurrection.

Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that presidential powers under the act apply only in cases of major rebellion, equivalent to the US Civil War, where normal law enforcement and courts can’t function. However, Fein added that it is unclear whether a president’s declaration of insurrection can be challenged in court.

“Congress, however, could impeach and remove Trump for misuse of the act in Portland,” Fein said, adding that military law obligates personnel to disobey orders that are clearly unlawful.

He said Trump’s use of the act in Portland would be “clearly illegal” even if it cannot be challenged in court.

The Insurrection Act has been invoked in response to 30 incidents, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

A government official in Ecuador has accused protesters of attempting to attack President Daniel Noboa, alleging that a group of approximately 500 people surrounded his vehicle and threw rocks.

The attack, which unfolded in the south-central province of Canar, took place as Noboa arrived in the canton of El Tambo for an event about water treatment and sewage.

Environment and Energy Minister Ines Manzano said Noboa’s car showed “signs of bullet damage”. In a statement to the press, she explained that she filed a report alleging an assassination attempt had taken place.

“Shooting at the president’s car, throwing stones, damaging state property — that’s just criminal,” Manzano said. “We will not allow this.”

The president’s office also issued a statement after the attack on Tuesday, pledging to pursue accountability against those involved.

“Obeying orders to radicalise, they attacked a presidential motorcade carrying civilians. They attempted to forcibly prevent the delivery of a project intended to improve the lives of a community,” the statement, published on social media, said.

“All those arrested will be prosecuted for terrorism and attempted murder,” it added.

Five people, according to Manzano, have been detained following the incident. Noboa was not injured.

Video published by the president’s office online shows Noboa’s motorcade navigating a roadway lined with protesters, some of whom picked up rocks and threw them at the vehicles, causing fractures to form on the glass.

A separate image showed a silver SUV with a shattered passenger window and a shattered windscreen. It is not clear from the images whether a bullet had been fired.

Noboa, Ecuador’s youngest-ever president, was re-elected in April after a heated run-off election against left-wing rival Luisa Gonzalez.

May marked the start of his first full term in office. Previously, Noboa, a conservative candidate who had only served a single term in the National Assembly, had been elected to serve the remainder of Guillermo Lasso’s term — a period of around 18 months — after the former president dissolved his government.

Combatting crime has been a centrepiece of Noboa’s pitch for the presidency. Ecuador, formerly considered an “island of peace” in South America, has seen a spike in homicide rates as criminal organisations seek to expand their drug trafficking routes through the country.

Ecuador’s economy has also struggled to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Noboa has faced multiple protests since taking office.

In recent weeks, for example, he has faced outcry over his decision to end a fuel subsidy that critics say helps lower-income families.

Noboa’s government, however, has argued that the subsidy drove up government costs without reaching those who need it. In a presidential statement on September 12, officials accused the subsidy of being “diverted to smuggling, illegal mining and undue benefits”.

The statement also said that the subsidies represented $1.1bn that could instead be used to compensate small farmers and transportation workers directly.

But the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the country’s most powerful Indigenous advocacy organisation, launched a strike in response to the news of the subsidy’s end.

It called upon its supporters to lead protests and block roadways as a way of expressing their outrage.

Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the group denied that there had been an organised attack on Noboa’s motorcade. Instead, CONAIE argued that government violence had been “orchestrated” against the people who had gathered to protest Noboa.

“We denounce that at least five comrades have been arbitrarily detained,” CONAIE posted on X. “Among the attacked are elderly women.”

It noted that Tuesday marked the 16th day of protest. “The people are not the enemy,” it added.

CONAIE had largely backed Noboa’s rival Gonzalez in the April election, though some of its affiliate groups splintered in favour of Noboa.

This is not the first time that Noboa’s government has claimed the president was the target of an assassination attempt.

In April, shortly after the run-off vote, it issued a “maximum alert” claiming that assassins had entered the country from Mexico to destabilise his administration.

At the time, the administration blamed “sore losers” from the election for fomenting the alleged plot.

Washington, DC – CNN commentator Van Jones has been facing backlash for making a crass joke about Palestinian children killed by Israel.

During an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO on Friday, Jones claimed without evidence that young people in the United States are being manipulated by Iran and Qatar through social media to care about the carnage in Gaza.

“If you are a young person, you are opening up your phone, and all you see is dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby,” he said, as the audience erupted in laughter.

Making light of the more than 20,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel and invoking the wrapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who has been involved in a sex abuse scandal, for comedic effect, sparked outrage against Jones.

The commentator – who has spoken at pro-Israel rallies – subsequently apologised.

“The suffering of the people of Gaza — especially the children — is not a punch line. I’m deeply sorry it came across that way,” Jones wrote on social media.

But Jones – who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama – did not mention who is behind the suffering of Palestinians, nor did he walk back his baseless claim of a “disinformation” campaign.

Jones’s comments were the latest in a long history of efforts to dehumanise Palestinians in the US.

Al Jazeera looks at 15 statements by US politicians, commentators and celebrities since the start of the war on Gaza two years ago that called for mass violence against Palestinians, painted them as inherently evil or dismissed Israeli atrocities – including the killing of children – as a justified necessity of war:

Congressman Brian Mast: “I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II. It is not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians.”

Congressman Max Miller: “We’re going to turn that [Palestine] into a parking lot.”

Congressman Andy Ogles: “I think we should kill them all.”

Congressman Randy Fine: “Release the hostages. Until then, starve away.”

Congressman Tim Walberg: “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It [Gaza] should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”

Senator Tom Cotton: “Israel doesn’t need patronising lectures about civilian casualties. As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza.”

Senator Lindsey Graham: “We are in a religious war here, I am with Israel. Whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself; level the place.”

Former President Joe Biden: “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.”

Former President Bill Clinton: “Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded. They’ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.”

Former White House spokesperson John Kirby: “Being honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties and that there likely will be more is being honest – because that’s what war is.”

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley: “Finish them.” (Written on an Israeli bomb)

Atlantic Magazine writer Graeme Wood: “It is possible to kill children legally, if for example one is being attacked by an enemy who hides behind them.”

Singer Kid Rock: “I don’t disagree with what Israel is doing. It’s like they should just go in there and be like, ‘You know what, we want our hostages back. If we don’t have them back, the clock starts now. In 24 hours, we are gonna start bombing m************, and killing civilians, 30,000 to 40,000 a f****** time’.”

Actor and producer James Woods: “No ceasefire. No compromise. No forgiveness. #KillThemAll”.