Reuters, the Daily Mail and ITV News report that three Hamas militants were killed by Israeli tank shells yesterday on the Israel – Gaza border. Reuters reports that the Israeli military said that militants had fired at its soldiers and that in response its forces were “targeting Hamas military posts”. The Israeli military said that an IDF officer had suffered moderate wounds and was evacuated to hospital for treatment. The Daily Mail reports that the clash comes five days after the UN and Egypt brokered a deal to halt the recent surge in violence between Israel and Gaza. A statement by the health ministry in Gaza said that the three men were killed in strikes east of Gaza City. Shortly after the Israeli strikes, sirens sounded near the Israeli city of Ashkelon close to Gaza, the Israeli army said. ITV News reports that an IDF spokesman said “fighter jets commenced a wide-scale attack against Hamas military targets throughout the Gaza Strip” and that “Hamas chose to escalate the security situation and will bear the consequences for its actions”.

The Times and the FT report on the ISIS suicide attacks which killed 220 people in the Syrian town of Sweida and surrounding villages. The Times reports that at least four suicide bombers detonated devices in Sweida during yesterday morning’s rush hour. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS fighters attacked and briefly took control of four villages on the outskirts of the city. The FT reports that the explosions took place in the main public squares and marketplace of the city. A statement by Mohammad Abbas Mohammad, a retired Syrian general, said that ISIS is “left with nothing but resorting to suicidal attacks and sleeper cells which aim at exhausting the state and the army”.

The Daily Mail reports on the IDF’s response to two missiles from Syria that fell into the Sea of Galilee yesterday. The rockets appeared to be errant fire from clashes between Syrian government forces and rebel groups near the frontier with Israel. The army said in a statement late on Wednesday that the area surrounding the rocket launcher was targeted by Israeli artillery.

The Jewish News and the Guardian report on antisemitism in the UK. The Jewish News reports on half year figures released by the CST which reveal there were 727 antisemitic incidents from January to June, the second highest ever recorded for that period, with almost a quarter coming from social media. The CST report highlights that the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK fell by eight percent in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year. Writing in the Guardian, Harriet Sherwood comments that a high number of antisemitic incidents recorded during the UK in the first six months of this year, have been attributed to reactions to violence on the border of Gaza and Israel, and the continuing row in the Labour Party over antisemitism.

The Guardian reports that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is cutting over 250 jobs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank as a result of cuts on its budget imposed by the Trump administration. “A total of 154 employees in the occupied West Bank and 113 in the Gaza Strip will be released”, said Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency. In response of the cuts, hundreds of people protested outside UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City with one man trying to set himself on fire. Gunness said that “The decision of the US to cut $300m [£228m] in funding to UNRWA this year has been described by our commissioner general as an existential threat to UNRWA”.

The Independent reports on the UN bloc of developing countries decision to elect the observer state of Palestine as its next leader. The choice of the Palestinians as the group’s chair for 2019 represents a diplomatic win for Ramallah at the expense of Israel and Washington DC. In an interview with The New York Times, permanent Palestinian observer to the UN, Riyad Mansour,“[The US and Israel] are still denying we are a state”. The move to give the Palestinians the chair of such a large delegation comes at a time of heightened tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.

All the Israeli media focus on the security situation.  Both Maariv and Israel Hayom lead on Israel being attacked on two fronts as rockets are fired from Syria in the north and another escalation on the Gaza border.  Similarly Yediot Ahronot declares the cease-fire has collapsed,  while Haaretz focuses on the details – as an IDF officer is moderately injured by gunfire on the Gaza border, the IDF attacked and killed three Hamas operatives.  Yediot Ahronot observes that in both instances in the north and south neither of the two incidents were committed by the power that is defined as being the sovereign in either territory. The IDF claims that the sniper fire on the troops yesterday was carried out by a rogue organisation, and not by Hamas. In the north, it was ISIS operatives who fired the rockets that landed in the Sea of Galilee, and not the Syrian army. “Nevertheless, in both cases Israel has to demand that the sovereign power take responsibility, and it also has to exact a painful price from the organisations that did the shooting so that they understand that incidents of that kind will not be taken in stride by Israel.” The paper adds: “The terror attack on the Gaza Strip border, which was committed at almost the precise location in which a similar terror attack was carried out last week by a Hamas sniper, indicates that this is a copycat terror attack by a rogue organisation that seeks to emulate Hamas’s methods.”  Regarding the north, Israel’s air-defence systems, for the second time this week, failed to perform adequately. On Monday, it was the David’s Sling system, which was operated for the first time ever against missiles that were fired from Syria, but failed to intercept its targets. Yesterday it was other air-defense systems that failed to respond to the rocket fire out of southern Syria. The IDF will conduct an inquiry into the matter, but it seems likely that the failure to intercept the rockets was not technical in nature.

Maariv reporting on the rocket fire in the north notes it’s the first time since the fighting in Syria commenced seven years ago, there was a “spillover” of fire deep into Israeli territory.  The paper also quotes people vacationing along the Sea of Galilee beaches on Wednesday afternoon.  They heard a loud noise in the water, which was accompanied by water spurting out of the lake to a height of three meters.  Eye witnesses told Channel 2 news:   “We found a spot for ourselves on the beach, and suddenly we heard a whistle.  We didn’t pay any attention to it. Suddenly there was a second whistle and we saw it land right here in the water, something like 50 meters from the beach. There were still people in the water here. They started getting out and it wasn’t clear what it was at first and then it turned out that it was a rocket that had landed in the water. Fortunately, there were no casualties.”  Kan radio news reports that the search for two Grad rockets will continue this morning after the rockets were fired from Syria yesterday afternoon. The police have cordoned off a strip along Gofra Beach and its waters in order to allow for the sweeps.

All the papers report Druze protests against the Nation State law passed by the Knesset last week.  Yediot Ahronot quotes Druze Brig. Gen. (res.) Anwar Saab, a former brigade commander who was injured in the Second Lebanon War. “Not politics, but democracy. This law is nothing but a disappointment to the character of the State of Israel. The damage isn’t to Druze as Druze, but a gross violation of the contract that was forged between the Druze community and the Jews,” he added, “I’m sure that Ben-Gurion is turning in his grave.” Saab said that the protest that he and his colleagues have begun is designed to “correct this foolish law”.  Maariv includes quotes from various figures commenting on the inequality of the legislation.  Druze MK Akram Hasson from Kulanu, which is part of the governing coalition said: “Nobody ought to be surprised that the nation-state law was received so badly by us.  The writing was on the wall, but some people have chosen to ignore it.”  MK Issawi Frej from the left wing Meretz party said, “a government that wanted deliberately to hurt the Arab citizens of Israel, and it suddenly discovers that hurting the Muslim Arabs has collateral damage in the form of hurting the Druze Arabs. Disgraceful”.

Haaretz reports that the World Bank announced yesterday that it would increase its support for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from US$55m last year to US$90m. The United Nations says UNRWA needs US$217m to continue its work until the end of the year. The Palestinian Authority announced that 70 per cent of the PA’s current budget had been cut and asked for help.

Kan radio news reports several ultra-orthodox faction MKs said behind closed doors that surrogacy for homosexuals is not an issue over which they would dismantle a coalition or hold an early election. They said that as with the draft bill, the ones to decide the matter would be the rabbis. The Haredi faction MKs have imposed total silence upon themselves with regard to LGBT rights issues, including surrogate parenting for male gay couples.

Army radio this morning interviewed Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon who admitted that mistakes were made in the recently approved Nation State law. He said: “The enactment of the nation-state law was done hastily, we were wrong and we need to fix it.”