The Financial Times, Metro and  i report that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the controversial purchase of three German submarines. Media reports last week suggested that the purchase was influenced by the business interests of Netanyahu’s lawyer David Shimron, who worked on the deal. Netanyahu said yesterday that the purchase was guided solely by Israel’s security needs, that he did not discuss the deal with Shimron and he rejected any suggestion of a public inquiry into the affair.

The i covers a protest by activists from the LGBT community in Jerusalem. The protest was a reaction to comments by the city’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in a newspaper, who called homosexuals an “abomination”.

Also in the i, the brief “Postcard from…” feature covers the discontent among many Palestinians over the leadership of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction. The article notes the deepening struggle between Abbas and his rival Mohammed Dahlan, with Fatah set to hold a leadership conference at the end of the month.

The Times online says that the last working hospitals in Aleppo, including the sole children’s clinic in the city, have been put out of action due to bombardments and air strikes from the Syrian regime and Russian aircraft. The Independent reports that rescue workers in Aleppo have run out of body bags following a “catastrophic” day of air strikes.

In the Israeli media, the latest developments in the German submarine affair lead the front pages. Maariv, Haaretz and Israel Hayom report that the Attorney General has decided that there is no basis for pursuing a criminal investigation at this point.

Israel Radio news reports that David Shimron, the lawyer at the centre of the controversy, took a polygraph test which indicates that he did not discuss the deal with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

However, Yediot Ahronot says that Shimron and his associate Mikey Ganor both pushed to build a German shipyard in Israel in order to work on the maintenance of the submarines, removing it from the hands of Israel’s Navy.

Yediot Ahronot prominently reports that the draft state budget, which is currently under discussion, will hand a record allocation to ultra-Orthodox seminary students. The report says that the amount was agreed by the cabinet yesterday, in accordance with coalition agreements. The article notes sharp opposition from residents of northern communities, who argue that by comparison they are being neglected.

Israel Radio news reports that an Armoured Corps officer has been dismissed after he was found to have fled the scene of a terror attack in Jerusalem last month, rather than engage the attacker with his weapon. Two Israelis were killed when a Palestinian opened fire in the Ammunition Hill area. The division commander said that the officer did not demonstrate the values and behaviour expected of an IDF combat soldier.