OCCUPIED WEST BANK  –  Israeli forces have killed at least four people, including two minors, in raids on multiple locations in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials reported on Wednesday. Israeli forces shot dead a 13-year-old boy, identified as Rami al-Halhuli, in the Shu’fat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli Border Police said he had fired fireworks at them.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir expressed support for Israeli soldiers amid outrage over the killing. “I salute the fighter who killed the terrorist,” Ben-Gvir posted on X. However, witnesses say the slain Palestinian teen had shot the fireworks upwards into the air, not at the Israeli forces, Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan reported from occupied East Jerusalem. “Witness accounts have corroborated two videos that we’ve seen. One is of the boy shooting the fireworks up in the air, not in the vicinity of the Israeli soldiers. And the other is of him shot, lying on the ground, and his mother is seen devastated,” Khan said.

“The mosque there has said they are going to declare a day of mourning tomorrow and a strike where all businesses will be closed in order for people to mourn his death.” The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated five others wounded by Israeli fire. Overnight Israeli raids were also reported in the town of Anabta, east of Tulkarem, where shots were fired, and in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, where Israeli forces attacked a vehicle wounding a 35-year-old man and his three-month-old child.

The Israeli police claimed they shot five men near the town of al-Jib, northwest of Jerusalem, as they were throwing Molotov cocktails. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 23-year-old Zaid Ward Shukri Khalifa and 16-year-old Abdullah Mamoun Hassan Assaf were killed, according to the Wafa news agency. The three other men shot are being treated at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah. “Border Guard fighters noticed 5 terrorists who had ignited Molotov cocktails and intended to throw them at drivers, endangering their lives. They opened fire on them, then arrested them and referred them for medical treatment,” the Israeli police posted on its Arabic account on X.

Israeli forces also stormed the grounds of the Jenin Government Hospital, shooting one Palestinian man dead and wounding five others, Wafa reported. The victim, Rabie al-Noursi, was in his 20s, the agency said. A Wafa correspondent reported that Israeli forces stormed the hospital’s yard and opened fire at a group of civilians who were standing in front of the emergency department. The killing followed multiple raids across the city of Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp. Dozens of Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers, supported by drones and an undercover special unit, took part in the raid in the early hours of Wednesday, Wafa said.

Violence has surged in the occupied West Bank since Hamas’ October 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. At least 427 Palestinians have been killed there, mostly during confrontations with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often soar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Sunday, over access to Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem…[+]

US – A US judge has dismissed a defamation case brought against the Duchess of Sussex by her half-sister.

Samantha Markle was suing Meghan over comments she made in a Netflix documentary and a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. In her ruling, Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell found these comments were either opinions, substantially true, or did not plausibly defame Samantha. The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning she will not be able to refile. Samantha had taken issue with Meghan’s comment, made in her interview with Winfrey, that Samantha had changed her surname back to Markle when her half-sister had started dating the Duke of Sussex. But in her ruling Judge Honeywell said: “The court has taken notice of the fact that [Samantha] used the surname Rasmussen in September 2016 and Markle two months later, soon after [Meghan’s] royal relationship was first reported.

“Therefore, the gist of the statement – that [Samantha] switched to her family name a short time after it was reported [Meghan] was involved with Prince Harry – is true.” The lawsuit also took issue with Meghan’s remarks on how close they were growing up, with Meghan telling Winfrey: “I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings.” Judge Honeywell ruled that this was Meghan’s expressed opinion of the relationship. The judge added that Samantha had failed to identify any statements that could support a defamation claim. According to the court document, this was Samantha’s third try at amending her complaint against Meghan, with whom she shares a father, Thomas Markle.

She first took legal action in March 2022, alleging the duchess had defamed her by giving information to an unauthorised biography called Finding Freedom and by discussing their relationship with Winfrey on live television. The case was thrown out last year after Judge Honeywell found the duchess could not be liable for the contents of the book because she had not published it…[+]

UKRAINE  –  Ukraine launched overnight drone attacks on three oil refineries deep inside Russia, a Ukrainian defense source told CNN yesterday, as Kyiv intensifies its cross-border strikes days before President Vladimir Putin’s anticipated re-election. The source told CNN that Ukraine is “implementing a well-planned strategy to decrease Russian economic potential.” The three Russian oil refineries targeted are in the cities of Ryazan, about 130 miles southeast of Moscow; Kstovo, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, nearly 300 miles east of the capital; and Kirishi in Russia’s northwest. The trio of facilities are among Russia’s largest refineries, the source said.

It marked the second consecutive day of Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites, and the locations targeted represent a spate of attacks well within Russia’s territory. “Our goal is to take away our enemy’s resources and decrease the flow of oil money and fuel Russia is using directly on the war,” the source told CNN. They came after a chaotic day on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, during which pro-Ukrainian groups of Russian fighters said they launched cross-border attacks and claimed to have gained control of the village of Tyotkino in Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its air defenses destroyed 58 Ukrainian drones overnight, including some that traveled as far as the Leningrad region, which borders Finland, supporting Kyiv’s claims. The regional governor in Ryazan, Pavel Malkov, said a fire broke out at the facility there but has since been extinguished. He said two people were injured. Social media video from the refinery complex, one of Russia’s largest, showed a large plume of smoke billowing from a building in the distance. A day earlier, Russian authorities reported at least 25 drone attacks, with local officials in the Oryol and Nizhny Novgorod regions reporting hits to fuel and energy facilities.

No casualties have been reported from either last Tuesday or yesterday’s attacks. But an apparent cross-border incursion on Tuesday saw attacks launched in the village of Odnorobovka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, and in the nearby Russian villages of Nekhoteevka and Spodariushino in Belgorod, according to Russian authorities. Russia’s Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 10 civilians were injured and six were hospitalized in the region.

As well as targeting Russia’s deep oil reserves, Kyiv’s latest strikes may be partially intended to bring home to Russians the impact of the war just as the country prepares for a presidential election. The vote is essentially certain to hand Putin a fifth term, extending his rule into the 2030s. Voting will take place over three days from Friday, with the president sailing towards another spell in power in a ballot that is not considered free or fair and in which he faces no genuine competition. During a lengthy interview on state television channel Rossiya 1 yesterday, Putin said Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and Kursk are happening amid Kyiv’s “failures” on the battlefield.

“All this is happening against the backdrop of failures on the line of contact, on the front line. They did not achieve any of the goals they set for themselves last year,” Putin said. “Against the backdrop of those failures, they need to show at least something, and, mainly, attention should be focused on the information side of the matter.”…[+]