'Major EU port ordered to stop arms shipments to Israel’17 July 2025

A Belgian court has ordered a halt to arms shipments to Israel from the EU's second-largest port, as anti-genocide activists seek legal ways to break Europe's political inertia. The Brussels Court of First Instance ruled on Thursday (17 July) that a shipping container of components for Israel's Merkava tanks and Namer armoured vehicles cannot be sent from the port of Antwerp in Belgium, where it's now stuck, to Israel. It also ruled that the government of Flanders, a Belgian region which hosts the port, was liable for €50,000 fines for any other container of arms sent to Israel in future, in violation of Flanders' self-imposed arms embargo, which dates back to 2009. The Belgian court said in its strongly worded verdict that the authorities had a "crushing responsibility" to enforce the rules, given events in Gaza, where Israel has killed over 58,000 people, in what the International Court of Justice said last year was "plausible" genocide.

The judge also said "the situation [on the arms embargo] is not under control", seeing as authorities didn't bother to monitor Antwerp arms shipments, unless shipping companies requested to have their own containers searched… An Israeli cargo firm called Challenge Airlines, which ships arms to Israel from around the world, sends Boeing 747s from Liège to Ben Gurion airport in Israel almost every day. The firm, which was forbidden from shipping arms to Israel via Belgium by a Belgian royal decree in 2024, told EUobserver the jets were carrying "fresh fish". But nobody in the Wallonian government, the federal government, or in Liège airport said it was their responsibility to check if that was true.

… The Antwerp port breakthrough came amid a proliferation of legal challenges against complicity in the Gaza slaughter in Europe, with related cases seen in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. French and Belgian lawyers in the JURDI Association have also filed an "action for failure to act" to prevent genocide at the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg against the EU Commission and Council. "The EU is in a situation of illegality today," said JURDI lawyer Farah Safi at a hearing in the EU Parliament in Brussels also on Thursday. Dima Issa, a campaigner at Palestinian group Al Haq, said legal action "on multiple fronts" was needed more than ever after EU foreign ministers opted not to impose any sanctions on Israel at their last meeting.