Brazil's Lula visits Fernández de Kirchner under house arrest in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited former Argentina President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at her home Thursday, where the former leader is serving her six-year sentence for corruption under house arrest.

Fernández, 72, had asked the court’s permission to receive Lula, a longtime political and ideological ally. Lula was in Buenos Aires for the summit of the regional Mercosur trade alliance and made the short trip to Fernández’s home in Argentina’s capital after the meeting concluded.

Lula was inside with Fernández for just under an hour and they did not appear publicly together.

“His visit was much more than a personal gesture: it was a political act of solidarity,” Fernández wrote in a lengthy post later on X that included photos of the two embracing.

It was not Lula’s first show of support for Fernández since Argentina’s Supreme Court upheld her sentence last month. He had called her to express his support after her conviction.

Fernández had been convicted of directing state contracts to a friend while she was the first lady and president. The sentence also permanently bans her from holding public office.

Fernández dominated Argentine politics for two decades and forged the country’s main left-wing populist movement known as Kirchnerism, after her and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner.

Lula has also faced imprisonment. While he was held in a police station in Curitiba in 2019, also for corruption, he received then-Argentinian presidential candidate Alberto Fernández, a political ally of Cristina Fernández who is not related to her. Lula’s conviction was later overturned.

Cristina Fernández on Thursday drew a parallel to Lula's detention, noting that he too was a victim of “lawfare,” but noted that the public returned him to office.

Lula posted on X later as well, encouraging Fernández to continue “your fight for justice.”

“I know how important recognition is in the most difficult moments,” he wrote.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, and Argentina's President Javier Milei pose for a group photo during the Mercosur Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A woman holds up a Brazilian flag on a road covered by the Spanish phrase: "Free Cristina" near the home of former President Cristina Fernandez, who is under house arrest serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption, after Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited her in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A supporter of Argentina's former President Cristina Fernandez holds a flag featuring Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Fernandez outside her home where she is under house arrest serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, July 3, 2025, on the day Lula visited her at home while he is in the country for the Mercosur Summit. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Journalists waits outside the home of former President Cristina Fernandez, who is under house arrest serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption, for the arrival of Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leaves the home of former President Cristina Fernandez, who is under house arrest and serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption, after visiting her while in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the Mercosur Summit, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)