TV News LIES

Thousands of Jewish ultra-Orthodox men clashed with Israeli police in central Jerusalem on Sunday during a protest against a Supreme Court order for them to begin enlisting for military service.

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party won the first round of France's parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on days of horsetrading before next week's run-off.

The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed.

That was ahead of leftist and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron's Together alliance, whose bloc was seen winning 20.5%-23%. The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled left-wing coalition, was projected to win around 29% of the vote, the exit polls showed.

The exit polls were in line with opinion polls ahead of the election, but provided little clarity on whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN will be able to form a government to "cohabit" with the pro-EU Macron after next Sunday's run-off.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed his appeal for more long-range weapons and air defences after a missile attack killed seven people including two children.

The Russian attack on the town of Vilniansk, near the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, also injured 31 others, Ukrainian officials said.

In total, at least 11 civilians were killed and a further 37 wounded in missile attacks across Ukraine on Saturday, Reuters reported.

"Our cities and communities suffer daily from such Russian strikes," Mr Zelensky wrote in a post on Telegram.

But he added that there were "ways to overcome this", including "destroying Russian missile launchers, striking with real long-range capability and increasing the number of modern air defence systems".

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the new Israeli ground offensive in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood forced the displacement of “at least 60,000” residents, while Israel’s military operations in the al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza resulted in 5,000 people displaced and many casualties.

Six people, including four children, have been killed and at least 15 others wounded in Israeli military strikes on residential homes in Gaza City overnight. Casualties were also reported in an attack on central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp, Palestinian Wafa news reports.

A poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 12 shows that about two-thirds of Israelis believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not seek reelection and leave politics.

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Norway’s largest pension fund has cut ties with Caterpillar due to the US bulldozer company’s alleged contribution to the construction of illegal settlements and other human rights violations by Israel’s armed forces in the West Bank and Gaza.

KLP took the decision to divest its $69m stake in the Texas-based industrial manufacturing group earlier this month after Caterpillar failed to provide satisfactory assurances that it was taking action to reduce the risk of its equipment being used by the Israeli military against Palestinians in violation of international law.

“For a long time, Caterpillar has supplied bulldozers and other equipment that has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure to clear the way for Israeli settlements,” said Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP.

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• Russia is considering a possible downgrading of relations with the west due to the deeper involvement of the US and its allies in the Ukraine war, but no decision had yet been taken, the Kremlin said on Thursday. A downgrading of relations – or even breaking them off – would illustrate the gravity of the confrontation between Russia and the west over Ukraine after an escalation in tensions over the war in recent months. Relations were maintained even during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the cold war is thought to have come closest to nuclear war.

• Ukraine’s military said on Thursday its forces had forced Russian troops out of a district in the town of Chasiv Yar on the war’s eastern front seen as Moscow’s next target in its slow advance through the area. Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern group of forces, told the Ukrinform news agency that Russian forces had moved out of Chasiv Yar’s “Kanal” district along the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal that runs along the town’s eastern edge. However, a Russian report said Moscow’s forces had destroyed a communications tower near the town and made further headway. It was not possible to independently verify either report.

• The Ukrainian president met the European Union’s 27 leaders in Brussels to sign a security pact, two days after his country began formal membership talks to join the bloc – a historic step that was unthinkable before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the EU-Ukraine security agreement would “enshrine the commitment of all 27 member states to provide Ukraine with extensive support, regardless of any internal institutional changes”.