The European Union has condemned the increase in settler violence since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and this week the United States began imposing visa bans on people accused of being involved.

“Violent settlers will be denied entry into Belgium and I will be proposing that Belgium advocates for an EU-wide travel ban,” De Sutter said on X.

Israeli citizens do not need a visa to enter the Schengen zone, which Belgium is part of, and can stay for up to 90 days. But a government spokesperson, Barend Leyts, said Belgium will ask at the European Council to add violent settlers to the Schengen information database to deny them entry.

On Wednesday evening, De Croo had also said that Belgium will work with the U.S. on sanctions against individuals harming peace in the West Bank.

Since a 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. It has built Jewish settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said this week that no one besides the government had the right to use violence, and that Israel had taken some steps to hold people responsible for the West Bank violence like administrative detention.

A week-old temporary truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on Friday after mediators were unable to extend the pause. Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse.

“I’ve addressed my concerns about the fact that violence has started again and I’ve again repeated what I said at the Rafah gate: no more civilian killings,” Belgium’s Alexander De Croo told reporters at the COP28 U.N. climate summit in Dubai.

Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the Belgian and Spanish ambassadors over remarks made by their prime ministers last week at the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

De Croo said at the time that Israel must respect international humanitarian law, that the destruction of Gaza was unacceptable and the killing of civilians had to stop.

An Israeli official said on Friday that the military abides by international law and that its sought to minimise the loss of civilian lives.

On Saturday, De Croo said Israel has “the right to eliminate the terrorist threat originating from Gaza” but that everything should be done to make sure that no more civilians were killed.

Israeli warplanes have pounded areas of Gaza since the end of the temporary truce, killing hundreds of people, according to health officials in the coastal strip. Sirens warning of rocket fire sounded in Israeli communities near Gaza on Saturday but there were no reports of serious damage or casualties.

“It’s unfortunate that the violence has started again. We hope that as soon as possible, more hostages can be liberated. We hope that the humanitarian access could be a permanent humanitarian access,” De Croo said.

Thousands of demonstrators, holding up pictures of Amini and many others killed in the protests, called for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic.

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Organisers said they had also demanded a unified European Union policy to hold Iran’s Shi’ite clerical rulers accountable for abuses.

The protests that followed the death of Amini, arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code, spiralled into the biggest show of opposition to the Iranian authorities in years.

Over 500 people including 71 minors were killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested, rights groups say, in unrest that was eventually crushed by security forces.

The Tehran government has accused the United States and Israel and their local agents of fomenting the unrest to destabilise Iran.

Proximus Opal, a unit of Belgian telecom service provider Proximus Group, has clients such as Salesforce and Bytedance, while Route Mobile’s clients include Amazon and Indian telecom service provider Airtel.

Proximus Opal will pay 1,626.40 rupees per Route Mobile share, just 0.06% more than the closing price on Friday, for the 57.56% stake held by Route Mobile’s promoters, an Indian market term for large shareholders who can influence company policy.

However, Clear Bridge Ventures, an affiliate of some Route Mobile promoters, will buy a minority stake of up to 14.5% in Proximus Opal for about 299.6 million euros (nearly $337 million).

Proximus Opal will also have to make an offer to buy an additional stake of up to 26% in Route Mobile at the same price from retail shareholders, according to Indian regulations.

“The partnership … paves the way for Route Mobile to achieve a billion-dollar annual revenue run-rate much sooner than the anticipated 3-4 year time frame,” said Rajdip Gupta, Route Mobile’s CEO, who will also lead the combined company.

Route Mobile’s revenue surged 78% to 35.69 billion rupees ($434.5 million) in the year ended March 31, while its profit nearly doubled to 3.27 billion rupees.

The company’s shares were down nearly 4% at 1,562.60 rupees in afternoon trading in India, having reversed course after initially jumping 8.3% to a 17-month high. The stock has surged about 150% since its market debut in September 2020.

Morgan Stanley was Proximus’s financial adviser.

Brussels (Reuters) – Belgian foreign affairs minister Hadja Lahbib is facing calls for resignation after granting visas to delegations from Iranian and Russian cities to attend a mayors convention in Brussels last week.

Lahbib is under scrutiny for having approved visas requests for citizens from two countries under international sanctions and only three weeks after Belgian NGO worker Olivier Vandecasteele was released from an Iranian jail.

Vandecasteele, 42, was arrested on a visit to Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying.

He was freed last month in a prisoner swap with an Iranian diplomat who had been imprisoned in Belgium in connection with a failed bomb plot.

The “Brussels Urban Summit,” which took place last week, saw the mayors of more than 300 international cities including Brussels, Bogota, Kyiv and Tehran and also members of the European Commission and the European Parliament, gathering to discuss challenges cities are facing.

State secretary for external relations & foreign trade of the Brussels government Pascal Smet resigned on Sunday over the all-expenses paid trip.

“We found an email showing that my office has agreed to cover the living expenses of the heads of delegation from Tehran and Kazan. I am now asking the organizers, Metropolis, to bear these costs,” Smet told a press conference on Sunday.

Smet said he was not aware of the email and added a member of his cabinet had made the mistake.

Belgo-Iranian lawmaker Darya Safai, from opposition party N-VA, said on Monday the party is asking for Lahbib’s resignation.

“We need a minister who accepts her responsibility,” Safai told Matin Premiere radio.

“The pending question is why did she agree to give these visas? Why only three weeks after the release of Olivier Vandecasteele, she accepts that terrorists come to Brussels? And why must the name of Belgium always be sullied by foreign relations which it cannot manage to control?” she said.

The foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to request for comments.

Belgian lawmakers will meet on June 21 to discuss the issue.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said he was “very relieved” that Kamran Ghaderi and Massud Mossaheb were being brought home after “years of arduous imprisonment in Iran.”

Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said that he was “happy and relieved that a Danish citizen is on his way home to his family in Denmark after imprisonment in Iran.” He didn’t name the person, saying their identity was “a personal matter” and he couldn’t go into details.

Schallenberg thanked the foreign ministers of Belgium and Oman for providing “valuable support,” without elaborating on what form it took. Løkke Rasmussen also thanked Belgium and said that Oman ”played an important role.”

Last week, a prisoner exchange between Belgium and Iran returned to Tehran an Iranian diplomat convicted of attempting to bomb exiles in France, Assadollah Assadi. Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, looking visibly gaunt, headed back to Brussels as part of the swap.

There was no immediate word on what, if anything, Iran obtained in return for the latest releases.

On Friday, Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib tweeted that her country was “unwavering in our dedication to advocating for other Europeans who are being arbitrarily detained” and had “successfully secured the release of two Austrians and one Dane who were unjustly held in detention in Iran.”

Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said he had briefed his Austrian and Danish counterparts at a Thursday meeting in Moldova on the “imminent release” of the three prisoners “heading to Belgium via Oman.”

Iranian state media and officials did not immediately acknowledge a release on Friday, which is part of the weekend in the Islamic Republic.

Oman often serves an interlocutor between Iran and the West and brings released captives out of the Islamic Republic. An Oman Royal Air Force Gulfstream IV, which had been on the ground in Tehran for several days, took off shortly before news of the European trio’s releases came out.

The releases also come after Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq visited Iran on his first trip there since becoming the Arab nation’s ruler in 2020.

Ghaderi is an Iranian-Austrian businessman who was arrested in 2016 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly spying for the U.S., charges strongly rejected by his supporters. His family had criticized Austria for being silent on his case in recent years.

Mossaheb, also an Iranian-Austrian businessman, was arrested in 2019 and received a 10-year prison sentence after what Amnesty International called “a grossly unfair trial for vague national security offenses.” Amnesty had said Mossaheb suffered from heart failure and diabetes, making his imprisonment that much more dangerous for him.

Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them following secretive trials in which rights groups say they have been denied due process.

Critics have repeatedly accused Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West.

Iran, facing Western sanctions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, has experienced protests in recent months and economic strain. However, it also reached a detente with Saudi Arabia through Chinese mediation, and the International Atomic Energy Agency dropped two inquiries into the country’s nuclear program.

Aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, 42, was arrested on a visit to Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying. The Belgian government said on Friday they had reason to believe that Iran had been planning to increase his sentence.

Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi was convicted in Belgium in 2021 in connection with a foiled bomb plot in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Both countries rejected the charges against their citizens as fabricated.

Vandecasteele landed at Melsbroek Air Base next to Brussels Airport and was met by his family, Belgian VRT TV showed. Oman had mediated the swap.

Iranian state TV reported that Assadi had arrived back in Tehran and showed him sitting with officials including government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian described Assadi in a Twitter post as “our country’s innocent diplomat who was illegally arrested against international law”.

Belgium’s Constitutional Court in March upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran, but that was not what was used to free Vandecasteele.

Using the treaty would have taken too long, Belgian government officials said, as that would have meant that the target of the bomb plot in France, the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), could have gone to court to stop the transfer.

Instead, Belgium used Article 167 of its constitution which specifies that the government can conduct its own foreign policy and regulate international relations, a government official said.

NCRI said Assadi’s release 15 years before the end of his sentence encouraged terrorism.

“Nothing justifies releasing a terror master,” Shahin Gobadi from NCRI said. “Nothing.”

Belgian opposition party N-VA said in a statement the government had succumbed to Teheran’s blackmail politics.

Oman’s foreign ministry said earlier an agreement had been reached under which the prisoners were released and transported from Brussels and Tehran to Muscat, the Omani capital, on Friday in preparation for their repatriation.

The Gulf Arab country has good relations with both Iran and Western countries and has acted before as a mediator for the two estranged sides.

Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is scheduled to travel to Iran on Sunday for a two-day visit.

Belgium’s justice minister said at the time of Vandecasteele’s conviction that it was based on fabricated evidence and amounted to retribution for the prison term given to Assadi.

Iran has arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage and security-related accusations. Rights groups have criticised the arrests as a tactic to win concessions from abroad by inventing charges, an accusation Tehran denies.

The Belgian government said Vandecasteele had been the only Belgian prisoner in Iran.

The initial announcement by Oman’s Foreign Ministry did not identify the prisoners being swapped.

However, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a statement that the aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, had been freed. Iranian state television later said, in an on-screen graphic, that the diplomat would be freed.

“Informed sources report the release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat detained in Belgium,” Iranian state TV said. “Further details will be announced.”

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said that “those released were transferred from Tehran and Brussels to Muscat today, Friday, in preparation for their return to their countries.” It added that “the sultanate of Oman appreciated the high positive spirit that prevailed in the talks in Muscat between the Iranian and Belgian sides, and their keenness to settle this humanitarian issue.”

De Croo said Vandecasteele was transferred to Oman on Thursday night. He was received by a team of Belgian diplomats and military officials, then was assessed by doctors.

“Olivier spent 455 days in prison in Tehran. In unbearable conditions. Innocent,” De Croo wrote. “Olivier Vandecasteele’s return to Belgium is a relief. A relief for his family, friends and colleagues.”

Oman has long served as an interlocutor for the West with Iran.

In January, Iran sentenced Vandecasteele to a lengthy prison term and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage in a closed-door trial. He also was fined $1 million. Vandecasteele had worked for a number of humanitarian organizations and his family and the Belgian government strongly denied Iran’s claims, made without offering evidence, that he was a spy.

In 2021, Belgium convicted Assadi of masterminding a thwarted bomb attack against an exiled Iranian opposition group in France and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors tied Assadi to a couple, stopped by the Belgian police and found with 550 grams (1.21 pounds) of TATP explosives and a detonator in 2018, who had been trying to target a meeting in Villepinte, France, of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, opposition group.

Among dozens of prominent guests at the rally in Villepinte that day were President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; Newt Gingrich, former conservative speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Assadi was arrested a day later in Germany and transferred to Belgium. Belgian intelligence identified him as an officer of Iran’s intelligence and security ministry who operated undercover at the Iranian Embassy in Austria. Iran denied Assadi’s involvement.

Iran has carried out kidnappings and other plots against dissidents abroad in the past.

Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them following secretive trials in which rights groups say they have been denied due process.

Critics have repeatedly accused Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West.

Iran, facing Western sanctions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, has faced protests in recent months and economic strain. Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq was already scheduled to visit Tehran this weekend before the announced prisoner swap.

The federal prosecutor’s office identified the suspect as a person in their 40s who has been living in Belgium since 2015. It said the suspect was believed to belong to a cell of the al-Qaida terrorist network that was “partly responsible for several bombings in the Green Zone of Baghdad in 2009 and 2010, which killed at least 376 people and injured more than 2,300.”

The suspect was charged with “several murders with terrorist intent, participation in the activities of a terrorist group, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

In March, Belgium’s Constitutional Court upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran that could lead to Assadi being swapped for Vandecasteele.

De Croo also said that Vandecasteele was being held hostage in Iran and repeated a call for his immediate release.