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Al-Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Shot And Killed During Israeli Raid In West Bank

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An Al Jazeera journalist has been shot dead by Israeli forces while covering a raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin, her broadcaster said.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian female reporter was shot in the head by a live bullet in Jenin. A second journalist, Ali Al Samudi, was also shot and is in a stable condition, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

Al Jazeera has accused Israeli security forces of deliberately targeting and killing Abu Akleh and called on the international community to condemn and hold Israel accountable.

The Israel Defense Forces said its security forces had been operating in the area “to arrest suspects in terrorist activities,” and both Palestinian suspects and Israeli forces were firing at the time.

“As part of the activity in the Jenin refugee camp, suspects fired heavily at the force and threw explosives. The force responded by firing. Hits were detected,” the IDF said.

“The possibility that journalists were hit, possibly by Palestinian gunfire, is being investigated. The event is being examined” the IDF added.

Al Jazeera journalist, Al-Samudi, who was with Abu Akleh when she was killed, said there were no Palestinian gunmen in the area at the time. “The Israeli army shot us,” said Al-Samudi who was also shot. “There was no Palestinian gunman in the place.”

In response to the shooting, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on Twitter his government had offered to conduct a joint Israeli-Palestinian investigation, adding: “Journalists must be protected in conflict zones and we all have a responsibility to get to the truth.”

Health ministry officials said the Al-Quds journalist Ali Samoudi, who is also Palestinian, was hit in the back by a bullet but has been reported to be in a stable condition.

Abu Akleh, 51, was born in Jerusalem. She began working for Al Jazeera in 1997 and regularly reported on-camera from across the Palestinian territories.

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Two Dead As Drone Attacks Set Oil Refinery On Fire In Russia

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Multiple air attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod adjoining Ukraine on Saturday killed two people and injured at least seven, the governor said.

Further east, an overnight drone attack on the Samara region caused a fire at a major oil refinery, the latest in a series of strikes against Russia’s fuel industry.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram that two districts in his region as well as the regional capital, also called Belgorod, had been hit in drone and air attacks.

“It’s shaping up to be a difficult morning,” Gladkov said.

“As a result of an air attack by Ukrainian armed forces on Belgorod, three balconies collapsed in an apartment building. One of these apartments was occupied by a married couple. To much grief, the man died from his injuries on the spot,” he said.

He posted a photo of a residential building with the facade partially destroyed.

Another person was killed in a drone attack on districts outside the city, he said.

In the Samara region – 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away from the front lines in eastern — the local governor reported “several drone attacks” on local oil refineries.

One of them caused a fire at the Kuibyshev refinery, governor Dmitry Azarov said in a statement on Telegram, noting that there were no casualties.

The refinery, run by Russian oil giant Rosneft, is one of the largest in the region, with a production capacity of seven million tonnes per year, according to its official website.

A drone attack on another refinery in the region, Novokuibyshevsk, “was repelled without damaging the technological equipment”, Azarov said.

The attacks came 24 hours after Russia unleashed one of its largest aerial barrages of the two-year conflict, hitting dozens of Ukrainian energy site and leaving more than a million temporarily without power.

Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 31 of 34 Russian drones fire at its territory overnight, while Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 12 Ukrainian drones.

Ukraine, which has been facing a Russian offensive for over two years, has stepped up its attacks inside Russia in recent weeks, targeting energy sites in particular.

And Russia has also launched a barrage of what it calls “retaliatory” attacks, targeting Ukraine’s energy sector and the capital Kyiv in recent days.

AFP

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Gun Attack At Moscow Concert Leaves At Least 40 Dead

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Gunmen opened fire at a rock concert in a Moscow suburb Friday killing at least 40 people, wounding 100, and setting off an inferno in the theatre, authorities said.

Attackers dressed in camouflage uniforms entered the building, opened fire, and threw a grenade or incendiary bomb, according to a journalist for the RIA Novosti news agency at the scene.

The fire quickly spread through the Crocus City concert hall in the Krasnogorsk suburb in the north of the Russian capital, which can hold several thousand people and has hosted top international artists.

“According to preliminary information, 40 people were killed and more than 100 were injured as a result of a terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall,” according to the FSB security service, quoted by Interfax news agency and other Russian media.

Authorities said a “terrorist” investigation had been started and President Vladimir Putin was receiving “constant” updates on the attack, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

Telegram news channels Baza and Mash, which are close to security forces, showed video images of flames and black smoke pouring from the hall.

Other images showed two men walking through the hall with at least one person left on the ground near the entrance. Concert-goers were also seen hiding behind seats or trying to escape.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there had been a “terrible tragedy” at the concert by Russian rock band Piknik and cancelled all public events in the city for the weekend.

Security services quoted by Interfax news agency said between two and five people “wearing tactical uniforms and carrying automatic weapons” opened fire on guards at the entrance and then started shooting at the audience.

“People who were in the hall were led on the ground to protect themselves from the shooting for 15 or 20 minutes,” the RIA Novosti journalist was quoted as saying.

People started crawling out when it was safe, the journalist reported.

About 100 people escaped through the theatre basement while others were sheltering on the roof, the emergency services ministry said on its Telegram channel.

But about one third of the complex was ablaze, TASS news agency reported.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it had been a “bloody terrorist attack”.

“The whole international community must condemn this odious crime,” she said on Telegram.

The US presidency called the attack “terrible” but said there was no immediate sign of any link to the conflict in Ukraine.

“There is no indication at this time that Ukraine or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev vowed on Telegram that Ukraine’s top officials “must be found and ruthlessly destroyed as terrorists” if they were linked to the attack.

“I offer my condolences to the families of the dead,” said Moscow’s mayor as a major security operation was launched around the theatre and nearby shopping mall.

TASS said that SOBR, special police forces, and the OMON anti-riot squad had been sent to the Crocus hall.

It added that all the members of the rock band had been evacuated safely.

Orthodox church leader Patriarch Kirill was “praying for peace for the souls of the dead,” said his spokesman Vladimir Legoyda.

Previous Warnings

Moscow and other Russian cities have been the targets of previous attacks by Islamist groups but there have also been incidents without any clear political motive.

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia warned that “extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow”, including concerts.

In 2002, Chechen separatist fighters took 912 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, the Dobrovka, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region.

Special forces attacked the theatre to end the hostage-taking and 130 people were killed, nearly all suffocated by a gas used by security forces to knock out the gunmen.

Russia launched a military intervention in Ukraine in February 2022 and it has been the target of attacks along the border by anti-Kremlin forces.

Ukraine’s presidency and the Freedom of Russia Legion, whose fighters are part of Ukraine’s armed forces, denied any role in the concert hall attack.

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Magnitude-6.4 Quake Hits Off Indonesia’s Java Island

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A magnitude-6.4 offshore earthquake hit near Indonesia’s Java island on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said, with the tremor felt in the capital Jakarta and forcing residents of another city to flee their homes.

The quake had a depth of approximately eight kilometres (five miles), and struck off Java island’s northern coast near Bawean island at about 3:52 pm local time (0852 GMT), the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no tsunami warning was issued by local authorities.

The quake was felt more strongly in East Java Province, including in the major city of Surabaya.

“I was at home when the earthquake struck. The jolt made us unsteady. The water in the sewer (outside) was swaying,” said Yulianus Andre, an AFP journalist in the city.

“My family and I rushed out of home and our neighbours did too. The jolt lasted more than a minute when we were outside.”

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

A magnitude-6.2 quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.

In 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people.

And in 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.

AFP

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