France investigates alleged spyware use against dissidents
Paris, Jul 20: The Paris prosecutor's office is investigating the suspected widespread use of spyware made by Israel-based NSO Group to target journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.
The prosecutor's office said in a statement on Tuesday that it opened an investigation into a raft of potential charges, including violation of privacy, illegal use of data and illegally selling spyware.
As is common under French law, the investigation doesn't name a suspected perpetrator but is aimed at determining who might eventually be sent to trial. It was prompted by a legal complaint by two journalists and French investigative website Mediapart.
An investigation by a global media consortium published this week found more than 1,000 individuals in 50 countries who were allegedly selected by NSO clients for potential surveillance by its flagship Pegasus spyware. Among them were journalists and politicians in France.
Based on leaked data, the consortium identified the targets from a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International and shared with 16 news organizations.
NSO Group denied that it ever maintained a list of potential, past or existing targets.
It called the Forbidden Stories report "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories."
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Hamas accepts cease-fire proposal for Gaza, but Israel's stance still uncertain
Jerusalem, May 6: Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a stance was still being formulated.
Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and some Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal, they said.
