Yamal and Spain meet England in the Euro 2024 final. It’s the best team against the most resilient

JERUSALEM (AP) — Three people were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli officials said, in what appeared to be an attack linked to the 11-month-old war in Gaza.

The military said the gunman approached the Allenby Bridge Crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said they were all men in their 50s.

Jordan is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra News Agency reported. The Western-allied Arab country made peace with Israel in 1994 but is deeply critical of its policies toward the Palestinians. Jordan has a large Palestinian population and has seen mass protests against Israel over the war in Gaza.

The Allenby crossing over the Jordan River is mainly used by Israelis, Palestinians and international tourists.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior official in the Civil Defense — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.

The Civil Defense said the strike targeted the home of its deputy director for north Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The army says it tries to avoid harming civilians and only targets militants.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. They abducted another 250, and are still holding around 100 of them after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire and the return of the hostages, but the negotiations have repeatedly bogged down.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories the Palestinians want for a future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but maintained control over its airspace, coastline and most of its land crossings. Along with Egypt, it imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

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VANIMO, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he traveled to the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea, bringing with him a ton of medicine and toys and a message of love overcoming violence for the people who live there.

Francis flew aboard a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 transport plane from Port Moresby to Vanimo, on the northwest coast of the South Pacific nation, close to the border with Indonesia. There, Francis met with the local Catholic community and the missionaries from his native Argentina who have been ministering to them.

A crowd of an estimated 20,000 people gathered on the field in front of the Vanimo cathedral singing and dancing when Francis arrived, and he promptly put on a feathered headdress that had been presented to him.

In remarks from a raised stage, Francis praised the church workers who go out to try to spread the faith. But he urged the faithful to work closer to home at being good to one another and putting an end to the tribal rivalries and violence that are a regular part of the culture in Papua New Guinea.

He urged them to be like an orchestra, so that all members of the community can come together harmoniously to overcome rivalries.

Doing so, he said, would help to end personal, family and tribal divisions “to drive out fear, superstition and magic from people’s hearts, to put an end to destructive behaviors such as violence, infidelity, exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, evils which imprison and take away the happiness of so many of our brothers and sisters, even in this country.”

It was a reference to the tribal violence over land and other disputes that have long characterized the country’s culture but have grown more lethal in recent years. Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea to urge an end to the violence, including gender-based violence, and for a sense of civic responsibility and cooperation to prevail.

Earlier in the day, an estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital, Port Moresby, for Francis’ morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.

In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.

“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”

After the Mass, Francis boarded the C-130 with just a few aides and his security detail. On board was also the golf cart popemobile he was using in Vanimo, as well as a ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

The aircraft, which is based at Australia’s base in Port Moresby, was being used both because of its cargo capacity and because the small airport in Vanimo doesn’t have an ambulift, the wheelchair elevator that Francis now needs to get on and off planes. By flying in on a C-130, Francis can disembark via the ramp, Vatican officials said.

Francis has long prioritized the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is actually more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.

Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, where the jungle meets the sea, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.

Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan, but was prevented from going because of his poor health.

Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.

There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animism and sorcery.

On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition.”

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

Francis’ visit to Vanimo was the highlight of his visit to Papua New Guinea, the second leg of his four-nation tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania. After first stopping in Indonesia, Francis heads on Monday to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

WINNIPEG – Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs will lie in state at the provincial legislature following her sudden death.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew made the announcement during a news conference Saturday morning where the province’s Indigenous leaders paid tribute to the late leader.

Merrick was outside the Winnipeg Law Courts building on Friday talking to reporters about two court cases when she said she felt dizzy and fell to the ground.

Fire and paramedic crews arrived, performed chest compressions and carried Merrick away on a stretcher to an ambulance, but she did not survive.

Kinew says the decision to have Merrick lie in state at the legislature was made in consultation with her family as well as the leadership of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, where Merrick was a former chief.

He says Merrick did a tremendous service to all people in Manitoba, and he wats all Manitobans to appreciate that.

“She moved the needle in the direction of righteousness and justice and kindness, and also reconciliation,” Kinew told the news conference at the headquarters of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents more than two dozen northern Manitoba First Nation communities.

Kinew said the decision would also mean people who won’t be able to travel to Pimicikamak will be able to pay their respects to Merrick in Winnipeg.

He said details on when Merrick will lie in state are being worked out, and an announcement will come later.

Merrick took over the helm of the chiefs assembly in 2022 and was the first woman elected to the role.

She supported families of the victims of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, pushing long and hard for authorities to search a landfill where the remains of two of the four Indigenous women are believed to be.

She also championed reform of the child welfare system, and called for better transportation, health care and other services in First Nation communities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2024.

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