Somalia, West Bank, Ethiopia

Today's three stories you should know

Somalia

Attackers armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have boarded an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, according to authorities. The capture of the Malta-flagged Hellas Aphrodite comes as attacks by Somali pirates surge for the first time in years with several incidents in recent weeks. The attackers are reported to have earlier seized an Iranian fishing vessel to use as a base of operations. Piracy off the coast of Somalia peaked in 2011 with 237 attacks costing the global economy a staggering $7 billion, with $160 million paid out in ransoms. The assaults were then all but ended by increased naval patrols from several nations and the strengthening of the country’s central government.

More from AP here.

West Bank

There has been an “unprecedented escalation” in attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and troops, the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) said. Mu’ayyad Sha’ban, head of the CRRC, said that Israeli forces last month carried out 1,584 attacks, including physical assaults, the demolition of homes and the uprooting of olive trees. He said settlers were responsible for 766 attacks as they continued to expand illegal settlements on Palestinian land. “These escalating violations confirm that what is happening is not a series of isolated incidents, but rather a systematic policy aimed at emptying the land of its inhabitants,” Sha’ban said.

More from the New Arab here.

Ethiopia

Officials from Ethiopia’s Afar region accused forces from the neighboring Tigray region of invading their territory, capturing villages and killing civilians. Tigray was the center of a brutal civil war from 2020-2022 that pitted the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against Ethiopia’s central government. The African Union has said up to 600,000 people may have been killed in the conflict. “The TPLF learns nothing from its mistakes,” the Afar administration said, denouncing what it called “acts of terror.” The incident will add to already growing fears that the country’s civil war is in danger of erupting again.

More from Al Jazeera here.

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