The Financial Times and Reuters reports that Arab powers appear to be prioritising close ties with the United States that are vital to countering Iran over traditional unswerving support for the Palestinians in their reaction to President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan.

BBC News reports that Palestinians have dismissed US President Donald Trump’s new Middle East peace plan as a “conspiracy”.

The Times reports that Binyamin Netanyahu is under pressure from his right-wing coalition partners to immediately annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank, following the unveiling of President Trump’s plan on Tuesday. Reuters reports that Israel’s defence minister, Naftali Bennett, called on Wednesday for Israel to establish sovereignty over nearly a third of the West Bank, acting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a Middle East plan that Palestinians branded apartheid.

The Telegraph reports that the Palestinians found themselves diplomatically isolated on Wednesday as neither Arab nor European states spoke out against Donald Trump’s plan. The Independent reports that Iran and its allies have vowed to oppose a US plan to carve up Israel and the Palestinian territories, but the proposals were welcomed by White House allies in the Arabian Peninsula.

BBC News reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned a dual US-Israeli national who was arrested on charges of drug trafficking last year. Naama Issachar, 26, was detained in Moscow in April 2019 after more than nine grams of marijuana were found in her luggage.

The Telegraph reports that Iraq is considering plans to replace US-led coalition troops with NATO ones, in a bid to quell growing opposition to the American presence in the country after its assasination of Iranian general Qassim Soleimani.

Reuters reports that French President Emmanuel Macron accused Turkey’s president on Wednesday of breaking promises made at a conference on Libya after Turkish warships and Syrian fighters arrived in the north African country.

BBC News and The Independent reports that the Syrian army says it has recaptured the strategic town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province, the opposition’s last stronghold.

The Times reports that natural greenhouse gases bubbling up from the bottom of the Red Sea are contributing to atmospheric pollution as much as some major fossil-fuel producing countries, a study has revealed.

The Guardian editorial says that Trump’s ‘peace plan’ is a ‘con, not a deal’, asserting a two-state solution came about as the result of a rules-based world order, which Mr Trump detests because it is inimical to the raw power that he prefers to govern global affairs.

The Financial Times editorial says the Trump plan is not a path to Middle East peace, asserting the US’ proposals aim to force Palestinians to accept the existing status quo and benefits the plan’s authors ‘more than those it is ostensibly designed to help’.

In The Guardian, Kim Ghattas argues the Saudi regime requires the Iranian regime to survive, saying the two states are built into a symbiotic  relationship where each state benefits from a stand-off with the other.

In The Guardian, Oliver Holmes, Sufian Taha and Hazem Balousha explain that residents of Abu Dis have poured scorn on Trump’s plan, as the Mayor of the Palestinian town, cut off from Jerusalem by an Israeli wall, says it has no aspiration to be the capital of a future ‘state’.

In The Financial Times, David Gardner argues that Donald Trump’s ‘real estate deal’ is intolerable, arguing there is ‘not the remotest chance’ any Palestinian leadership could accept these terms.

In The Independent, Bel Trew writes that Trump’s ‘divisive’ peace plan erodes previously accepted principles of peace so far as to do them irreparable damage, regardless of whether the plan itself is implemented by Israel.

All the Israeli media report that Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned Israeli woman Naama Issachar yesterday. Issachar has been in prison in Russia since last year after being convicted of drugs smuggling. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow directly from Washington and is expected to bring Issachar back to Israel with him after his meeting with Putin. “I thank my friend President Putin for granting a pardon to Naama Issachar. I am looking forward to our meeting tomorrow, at which we will discuss the Deal of the Century and the latest developments in the region,” Netanyahu said.

All the Israeli media reported that the IDF carried out airstrikes against Hamas military targets inside the Gaza Strip, after one mortar and a cluster of explosive balloons were launched at Israel yesterday. The IDF said that among the targets was a weapons manufacturing facility and underground military sites.