This morning’s Times, Guardian and Financial Times report on yesterday evening’s surprise announcement that the Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will run a joint list of candidates with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu Party in January’s Israeli elections. Both Netanyahu and Leiberman said that the decision to run together will strengthen Israel’s stability and ability to tackle challenges ahead. The Independent i reports briefly on yesterday’s quiet on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip following Wednesday’s serious upsurge in violence in the area, including the firing of some 80 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel.  Meanwhile, the online editions of the Guardian, Telegraph, Financial Times and Independent all report on the apparent agreement to a four-day ceasefire in Syria at the same time as violence continued yesterday in the city of Aleppo. The Syrian army confirmed in a statement that it would break off fighting this morning until Monday, as proposed by the United Nations-Arab League envoy tasked with halting the eighteen month long violent conflict in the country. However, opposition forces yesterday took control of areas of the northern city of Aleppo.  The Independent and its sister publication Independent i publish special reports on the major military involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict, bolstering the strength of President Assad’s forces.

The Guardian claims that a meeting last week in Azerbaijan between Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan and Iranian President Ahmadinejad signified a mutual interest in ending the fighting in Syria. With the two countries having heavily backed opposing sides in a conflict which shows no sign of ending, the article claims that Turkey and Iran could now be working together to bring an end to the violence. Meanwhile, both the Guardian and the Times report continued Sudanese accusations that Israel was responsible for the explosions at an arms factory near the capital Khartoum earlier this week. Israeli officials continue to refuse to comment on the incident.

The Israeli media this morning is overwhelmingly dominated by the announcement that a joint Likud-Yisrael Beitenu list will run in January’s elections. The headlines in both Yediot Ahronot and Israel Hayom refer to the deal as a ‘big bang’. There is speculation over exactly how the joint list will be structured, with Lieberman seemingly likely to be given the opportunity to choose his preferred portfolio in a future cabinet.

There is also a large amount of commentary on the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu deal. Nahum Barnea, writing in Yediot Ahronot says that history shows “uniting lists usually shrinks them” although he adds that it appears to have guaranteed an electoral win. Maariv’s Shalom Yerushalmi believes that the right-wing bloc could shrink as a result of the union. Meanwhile, in the same publication, Ben Caspit writes that the leaders of the centre-left are “trapped in their own egos” and appear unable to unite in a similar fashion. In other news, Haaretz reports on yesterday’s calm in Israel’s south following Wednesday’s barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip which were fired on the region.