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MIDDLE EAST

Denmark sued by aid groups over arms exports to Israel

Four humanitarian organisations on Tuesday said they were suing Denmark to get it to stop its weapons exports to Israel.

Denmark sued by aid groups over arms exports to Israel
Four humanitarian organisations on Tuesday said they were suing Denmark to get it to stop its weapons exports to Israel. Photo: Søren Bidstrup/Ritzau Scanpix

The lawsuit was filed against the national police and the foreign ministry.

“Denmark should not be sending weapons to Israel when there is a reasonable suspicion that it is committing war crimes in Gaza,” Tim Whyte, the secretary general of Action Aid Denmark, one of the organisations behind the lawsuit, said in a statement.

“We need to get the court’s word on Denmark’s responsibility,” he said.

Investigative media Danwatch in November revealed that Israel’s F-35s were equipped with parts made by the Danish group Terma.

The three other organisations behind the legal action were the Danish branches of Amnesty International, Oxfam and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

The lawsuit came almost a month after a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 parts to Israel.

In mid-February, a Dutch appeals court judge ruled that there was “a clear risk that serious violations of humanitarian law of war are committed in the Gaza Strip with Israel’s F-35 fighter planes.”

Several similar lawsuits are underway in other countries, including in Canada where the foreign and justice ministers have been targeted.

But London’s High Court last month rejected a similar petition to suspend British arms exports to Israel.

The war started with the October 7th Hamas attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes 99 hostages remain alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of 31.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive have killed 31,112 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

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MIDDLE EAST

Danish intelligence agency says terror threat affected by war in Gaza

The threat of terror has increased in Denmark primarily due to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to the Danish police intelligence agency PET.

Danish intelligence agency says terror threat affected by war in Gaza

The overall terror threat rating against Denmark remains at four out of five, however, PET said in a new threat assessment released on Thursday.

“Both Quran desecrations and the conflict in the Middle East have a derived significance for the threat situation in Denmark,” the head of PET’s Centre for Terror Analysis, Michael Hamann, said in a press statement.

PET therefore sees the terror threat against Denmark and Danish interests as intensified for at least the next year, the statement continues.

The Centre for Terror Analysis has long considered the level of terror threat to Denmark to be at a level of four out of five. This rating means that PET has identified the capacity, intention and planning of a potential attack against Denmark, but without any attack taking place.

A level five rating would mean both a specific threat and possible initiation of an attack.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has potential to radicalise, meaning it could have consequences related to the terror threat in Denmark, Hamann said.

“It’s important to stress that it naturally is completely legitimate to be engaged and have an opinion about the conflict as long as this is done in a legal way. The many civilian victims cause an emotional response for many people [in Denmark],” he said.

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