Israeli farmers whose dream of producing tequila was cut short by Hamas’s October 7 attack have returned to work along the Gaza border, ploughing fields and sowing seeds to bring their land back to life.With artillery fire and explosions booming in the distance, businessman Aviel Leitner and farmer Eran Braverman inspected their field of blue agave, hoping they would one day soon produce the country’s first-ever batch of tequila.Planted prior to the war sparked by the unprecedented October 2023 attack on communities in southern Israel, Leitner said the violence and subsequent chaos meant waiting until now to unveil their unique project.”We wanted to very much show that Israeli farmers had returned to the fields, that this war wasn’t going to stop them, that there were new crops growing in the Negev and that there is nothing sexier than tequila and mezcal and agave spirits,” he told AFP.Leitner said he was inspired to bring the plants to Israel following a family trip to Mexico.For him and Braverman, the survival of the exotic plants -– just like their complex transportation from Mexico to Israel — is nothing short of a miracle.- Taste of tequila -On October 7, 2023 militants attacked Kibbutz Alumim and other communities around it, burning down barns and greenhouses and destroying irrigation equipment. “We are about four kilometres from the (Gaza) fence and everything from the fence to Alumim was destroyed,” recalled Braverman, who said that 22 farm workers from Nepal and Thailand were murdered there, as were three soldiers who died defending the site.”When we heard what happened, we were very scared for the farmers and their families because we had grown close to them. It was very, very traumatic,” said Leitner.He was also concerned for his plants.The dry desert conditions and the drip irrigation technology meant the blue agave could survive without much care and somehow, the field was unaffected by the fighting.Now, the two men are counting down the days until the plants are ripe, as Leitner looks for a place to build his tequila distillery.”We’re hoping to start manufacturing in early winter 2025 and this will be the first agave spirit manufactured in the land of Israel,” Leitner said.- New crops -Danielle Abraham, executive director of the NGO Volcani International Partnerships, which assists Israeli farmers through its “Regrow” project, said communities in southern Israel were “determined to get back on their feet and grow back stronger.””They are trying to bring new crops, introduce new innovation and think about the future,” she said, adding that “they stood up after a disaster with such resolve.”Citing statistics from the kibbutz movement, Abraham said that farms in southern Israel were now back at close to 100 percent of their pre-October 2023 capacity, but were still undergoing challenges.”The ongoing war and the uncertainty is still taking a big toll mentally on the farmers,” she said.Sheila Gerber, who has run a botanical garden and cactus farm with her husband Yaakov for the past 30 years in the nearby Moshav Talmei Yosef cooperative, said visitors were still staying away.The fighting is on the other side of the border but the community still live in fear, said Gerber, who described how a recent explosion caused all the glass in one of their greenhouses to shatter.”It was horrifying. It was scary,” she said.  Hamas militants did not reach Talmei Yosef on October 7, after being repelled just outside the gates by members of a civilian security team.Gerber and her family were evacuated, and returned a few weeks later.”We came back because farmers come back — you can’t just leave everything to die,” she said, adding  that “almost all the farmers came back.”Gerber recalled how, until the Second Palestinian Intifada or uprising against Israel began in 2000, she and her family could visit Gaza.”When it was peaceful, it was very nice and we could go to the markets, we could go to the beach, we could take the kids, it was no problem,” she said. “But of course now we can’t and it’s very sad for everybody,” she added. “What will be the future, we really don’t know.” 

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court including over an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it ramped up pressure to neuter the court of last resort.The four judges in The Hague, all women, will be barred entry to the United States and any property or other interests in the world’s largest economy will be blocked — measures more often taken against policymakers from US adversaries than against judicial officials.”The United States will take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our sovereignty, that of Israel, and any other US ally from illegitimate actions by the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.”I call on the countries that still support the ICC, many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices, to fight this disgraceful attack on our nation and Israel,” Rubio said.The court swiftly hit back, saying in a statement: “These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe.”Israel’s Netanyahu welcomed the move, thanking US President Donald Trump’s administration in a social media post.”Thank you President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio for imposing sanctions against the politicised judges of the ICC. You have justly stood up for the right of Israel,” he wrote on Friday.- War crimes -Human Rights Watch urged other nations to speak out and reaffirm the independence of the ICC, set up in 2002 to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s gravest crimes when countries are unwilling or unable to do so themselves.The sanctions “aim to deter the ICC from seeking accountability amid grave crimes committed in Israel and Palestine and as Israeli atrocities mount in Gaza, including with US complicity,” said the rights group’s international justice director, Liz Evenson.Two of the targeted judges, Beti Hohler of Slovenia and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin, took part in proceedings that led to an arrest warrant issued last November for Netanyahu.The court found “reasonable grounds” of criminal responsibility by Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for actions that include the war crime of starvation as a method of war in the massive offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.Israel, alleging bias, has angrily rejected charges of war crimes as well as a separate allegation of genocide led by South Africa before the International Court of Justice.The two other judges, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru and Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, were part of the court proceedings that led to the authorization of an investigation into allegations that US forces committed war crimes during the war in Afghanistan.- Return to hard line -Neither the United States nor Israel is party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court. But almost all Western allies of the United States as well as Japan and South Korea, the vast majority of Latin America and much of Africa are parties to the statute and in theory are required to arrest suspects when they land on their soil.Trump in his first term already imposed sanctions on the then ICC chief prosecutor over the Afghanistan investigation. After Trump’s defeat in 2020, then president Joe Biden took a more conciliatory approach to the court with case-by-case cooperation. Rubio’s predecessor Antony Blinken rescinded the sanctions and, while critical of its stance on Israel, worked with the court in its investigation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ICC judges in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged mass abduction of Ukrainian children during the war. Both Putin and Netanyahu have voiced defiance over the ICC pressure but have also looked to minimize time in countries that are party to the court. The ICC arrest warrants have been especially sensitive in Britain, a close US ally whose Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer. Downing Street has said that Britain will fulfil its “legal obligations” without explicitly saying if Netanyahu would be arrested if he visits.Hungary, led by Trump ally Viktor Orban, has parted ways with the rest of the European Union by moving to exit the international court. Orban thumbed his nose at the court by welcoming Netanyahu to visit in April.

US President Donald Trump has signed a travel ban on 12 mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, reviving a controversial measure from his first term expected to trigger a fresh wave of legal challenges.Trump said on Wednesday the measure was spurred by a makeshift flamethrower attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that US authorities blamed on an Egyptian man they said was in the country illegally.The move bans all travel to the United States by nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, according to the White House.Trump also imposed a partial ban on travelers from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Some temporary work visas from those countries will be allowed.”The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,” Trump said in a video message posted on social media platform X.”We don’t want them.”- World Cup, Olympics, diplomats excluded -The ban will not apply to athletes competing in the 2026 World Cup, which the United States is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, as well as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Trump’s order said.Nor will it apply to diplomats from the targeted countries, according to the spokesman of the secretary-general of the United Nations headquartered in New York.”As we’ve said before, whatever system is put in place (should be) one that respects people’s human dignity,” said Stephane Dujarric, who added it was for individual countries to determine how to control their borders.UN rights chief Volker Turk warned that “the broad and sweeping nature of the new travel ban raises concerns from the perspective of international law.” And Amnesty International USA called the ban “discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel.”Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro meanwhile claimed Trump was being “poisoned” by “lies” about his country, while Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello warned that it was the United States that posed a risk to visitors from Venezuela and elsewhere.With seven of the 12 countries banned from Africa, the African Union said the move would harm “people-to-people ties, education exchange, commercial engagement, and broader diplomatic relations” and urged “constructive dialog.”Yemen’s internationally recognised government urged Washington to “reconsider” the travel ban, or to at least exempt Yemeni citizens “in recognition of the difficult humanitarian conditions” in the war-ravaged country.In Myanmar, one student affected by the ban only got her US study visa two days ago and said it would hit many young people’s dreams of escaping oppression.”We don’t really have life here, and people want to escape to a country where we can breathe, we can walk, we can study,” she told AFP from Yangon.In Haiti, Pierre Esperance, a human rights activist in the capital Port-au-Prince, warned that following the decision, the impoverished and violence-hit country “will be further isolated.”The ban could yet face legal challenges, as have many of the drastic measures Trump has taken since his whirlwind return to office in January.- ‘Terrorists’ -Rumors of a new Trump travel ban had circulated following the fire attack on Jewish protesters in Colorado, with his administration vowing to pursue “terrorists” living in the United States on visas.US officials said suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national according to court documents, was in the country illegally having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022.Trump gave specific reasons for each country facing travel restrictions — a list that notably did not include Egypt — insisting the move aimed to protect the United States from “foreign terrorists and other national security” threats.His proclamation said Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and war-torn Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen lacked “competent” central authorities for processing passports and vetting.Iran, with which the United States is in negotiations on a possible nuclear deal, was included because it is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” the order said.For most of the other countries, Trump’s order cited an above-average likelihood that people would overstay their visas.dk-burs/gw/bjt/sla