When zombie-blasting survival game “Resident Evil” launched on the very first PlayStation console in 1996, Japanese publishers Capcom never thought the series would reach tens of millions of people or endure for three decades.The franchise has become Capcom’s biggest, spawning a string of sequels as well as film and TV spinoffs and competing over the …
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Dozens of Israeli soldiers stormed the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday, witnesses and Palestinian officials said, with the Red Crescent reporting at least seven people wounded in the raid.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military confirmed that its forces were conducting an operation in the northern West Bank city, without specifying its purpose.The raid began at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT), residents said, with soldiers in armoured vehicles storming several neighbourhoods of Nablus’s old city, which has a population of around 30,000 people.It came a day after Israeli forces carried out a relatively rare raid on Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority, targeting a currency exchange in the city centre and leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlas told AFP that Wednesday’s “assault… is merely a show of force with no justification”.One witness, who declined to give his name, reported that soldiers had expelled an elderly couple from their home.Israeli troops “are storming and searching houses and shops inside the old city, while some houses have been turned into military posts”, said Ghassan Hamdan, head of the Palestinian Medical Relief organisation in Nablus.AFP footage showed Israeli forces and military vehicles deployed on the streets, with some troops taking position on a rooftop.Daghlas said the army had informed Palestinian authorities that the raid would last until 4:00 pm.Local sources said clashes broke out at the eastern entrance to the old city, where young people threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and live ammunition.- ‘Escalation’ -The Red Crescent said its teams treated five people wounded by rubber bullets, one person hit by live bullet shrapnel and another following “physical assault”.One more person was injured in a “fall” during the raid, the medical organisation added, and at least 27 others suffered from tear gas inhalation.Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, in a statement carried by official news agency Wafa, slammed “the Israeli escalation in cities and refugee camps”, calling a recent uptick in raids “dangerous, condemned and unacceptable”.The old city of Nablus has been the focus of several major Israeli raids, including in 2022 and 2023 during large-scale operations targeting a local grouping of armed fighters, as well as in 2002 during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.In early June 2025, an Israeli military operation there resulted in two Palestinians killed.Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank have killed at least 972 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, since the beginning of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Authority figures.In the same period, at least 36 Israelis, both civilians and security forces, have been killed in attacks or during military operations in the territory, according to Israeli figures.
Lebanese state media said US envoy Tom Barrack cut short a visit to the south on Wednesday, amid protests in two planned stops against US pressure to disarm Hezbollah.The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that Barrack arrived by helicopter at a Lebanese army barracks in Marjayoun near the border, with soldiers deploying in the area.The news agency later reported that the envoy had cancelled planned stops in nearby Khiam, which was pummelled by Israel during its latest hostilities with Hezbollah, and in the coastal city of Tyre.A spokesperson told AFP the US embassy did not comment on officials’ schedules for security reasons.An AFP correspondent in Khiam saw a group of residents, some waving Hezbollah flags or holding pictures of fighters killed in the conflict, demonstrating against Barrack.Some were standing on a Star of David that had been drawn on the road in blue, near the words in Arabic “America is the great Satan”, and “Barak is animal” written in English.The last was a reference to comments by the US envoy at a Beirut press conference on Tuesday which sparked an outcry in Lebanon.Barrack told journalists to “act civilised”, adding: “The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone.”Bilal Kashmar, an official from the southern municipalities union, said dozens of people had demonstrated in Tyre on Wednesday against Barrack’s expected visit and Washington’s “biased policies”.Under heavy US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli military action, Lebanon’s government tasked the army this month with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by year end.The Iran-backed group, which enjoys strong support in the south, was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities including two months of open war with Israel that largely ended with a November ceasefire.Fellow US envoy Morgan Ortagus said in Beirut on Tuesday that the Lebanese government needed to implement its decision to disarm Hezbollah, adding that Israel would respond in kind.Hezbollah insists that Israel must complete its withdrawal from Lebanon and halt its continuing strikes before the future of the group’s weapons can be discussed.
US tariffs of 50 percent took effect Wednesday on many Indian products, doubling an existing duty as President Donald Trump sought to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil.India has criticized the levies as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,” with its export body calling on Wednesday for government intervention to assuage fears of heavy job cuts.Trump …
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Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar urged Madrid to cut all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel Wednesday over the war in Gaza, calling the conflict a “genocide”.The “All About My Mother” director called on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to convince other European leaders to do the same in a video posted on Instagram by his production company.”I ask our government to sever diplomatic, commercial, and all types of relations with the State of Israel as a sign of repulsion against the genocide it is committing against the people of Gaza before the eyes of the entire world,” he said.Almodovar has previously signed a letter with other Spanish artists including Javier Bardem denouncing the “silence” over Gaza during the Cannes film festival in May.Sanchez’s leftist government has been among the most vocal critics in the European Union of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.He called it a “genocide” in June having recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024, but Spain has not broken ties with Israel.The war was triggered by an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas into Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 62,819 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
