The Daily Mail reports that the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip reached its highest production level in months on Thursday, the UN said, as part of a deal to overcome chronic power cuts. “Today the second turbine of the Gaza power plant starts producing 52 MW, alleviating the suffering of two million Palestinians in Gaza,” UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov, who helped broker the deal, wrote on Twitter. Mladenov said Thursday’s supply reached 172 megawatts in total, the highest since 21 January although far from the 500 megawatts needed for the strip to have full power. Qatar earlier this month agreed to pay $60m for fuel to be delivered to the power plant over a period of six months, allowing it to increase operations. UN officials hope the deal could significantly increase electricity rates in Gaza, where residents receive only a few hours of mains power a day. It could also help calm tensions between Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas and Israel.

The Independent, BBC, Evening Standard, Daily Mail and Reuters report that at least 18 people have been killed in flash floods near the Dead Sea in Jordan, most of them in a bus that was swept away. The bus was carrying 37 pupils and seven members of staff to the Zara Maeen hot springs area, officials said. A huge rescue operation was launched and Israel said it had sent helicopters at Jordan’s request. So far 34 people have been rescued from the area. Hundreds of families and relatives converged on Shounah hospital a few kilometres from the resort area.

The Daily Mail reports that the Labour Party has dropped its complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) about the its story in August which stated that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath at the graves of Palestinians involved in the 1972 Black September terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The Labour Party said last night that the report “seriously misrepresented what took place” but said the reason for dropping the complaint was due to confidential documents sent to IPSO being leaked. Corbyn is still under investigation by Parliamentary authorities for failing to register the visit to Tunisia.

The Independent and the Daily Mail report that an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen killed 21 civilians on Wednesday, including two children, according to medical workers. The strike hit a popular vegetable market in the town of Bayt el-Faqih, south of the port city of Hodeida, which coalition forces have been battling to capture from Houthi rebels since June. Abdullah Shahawi, the director of the hospital that received casualties, told the Associated Press that all the victims were civilians. News of the strike came as a number of UK human rights groups announced a new legal challenge to UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The Daily Mail reports that Ahed Tamimi has said “we should always be slapping Israeli soldiers … whether they did anything or not,” after she was jailed for assaulting two soldiers outside her home. Tamimi was released from Israeli prison earlier this year having been arrested in December over the confrontation in Nabi Saleh, a village in the West Bank.

The Daily Mail reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Israel’s President and a former minister of conspiring to have him toppled. Netanyahu told a gathering of his Likud party on Wednesday night about an alleged plot, which the President denies. He claimed President Reuven Rivlin had been plotting with a former cabinet minister Gideon Saar in a “concocted and subversive plot” to replace him as prime minister. He claimed: “I know that a former Likud minister has been holding discussions with the coalition and concocted a subversive plot, with me winning a large victory at the next elections and him making sure I am not prime minister.” Saar has denied any such manoeuvre, while President Rivlin mocked it as “paranoia” on the premier’s part.

The FT and The Times report that Saudi Arabia has changed its story about Khashoggi once again. The FT say Saudi investigators probing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi have been told by their Turkish counterparts that the attack on the dissident journalist was premeditated. The attorney-general in Riyadh said a Saudi prosecution team had “received information from the Turkish side . . . that the suspects in the incident committed their act with a premeditated intention,” according to a statement on the official Saudi news agency. The decision to highlight the disclosure represented another shift in Riyadh’s stance on the case, which has changed several times in the face of international condemnation and Turkish leaks about Khashoggi’s fate. “The public prosecution continues its investigations with the accused in the light of what it has received and the results of its investigations,” the attorney-general said on Thursday.

The Times reports that a White House statement last night confirmed CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed President Donald Trump after returning from Turkey to the US. Turkish officials have suggested that a joint Saudi-Turkish investigation is merely a symbolic “working group” while a separate, Turkish-only, criminal investigation takes place. Saudi Arabia is facing mounting scepticism over its official version of events. Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament on Wednesday was “not credible”.

Reuters reports that a year ago the Saudi sovereign investor Public Investment Fund (PIF) was a rising star among state-backed funds. It poured billions of dollars into the SoftBank technology fund of Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son and the infrastructure vehicle of US private equity firm Blackstone, and was building a war chest for overseas deals. PIF, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, emerged as the most viable partner for foreign investors after an anti-corruption purge last year tainted many members of the Saudi business elite. But the outcry over the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month has made some Western firms reluctant to deal with PIF, threatening to slow some of its grandiose projects and global investments.“ Firms in sectors with a stronger corporate social responsibility profile, including US-based tech firms, will have a harder time accepting PIF money,” said Steffen Hertog, a scholar on Saudi Arabia at the London School of Economics. “Larger and lumpier equity injections, potentially of the type giving the PIF a board seat, will be particularly difficult.”

Yediot Ahronot and Maariv report on the row between Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Likud minister Gideon Saar, after Netanyahu alleged that Saar had devised a “plot,” together with President Rivlin to oust him. Saar called the allegations libelous, whereas close associates of the Prime Minister referred to him as “hysterical”. Some Likud figures called yesterday to lower the flames due to concerns that the clash would hurt the party. MK Miki Zohar said: “There are moments when you have to know when to stop. A clash between the prime minister and Gideon Saar does not help the Likud.”

Maariv features a public poll in which 29 per cent said they believed Saar and 22 per cent said they believed Netanyahu while 49 per cent said they did not know. Among Likud voters, a majority of 66 per cent said that they believed Netanyahu, versus 29 per cent who believed Saar.

Maariv reports that security officials believe Hamas did not fire the Grad missile that landed in an open area in southern Israel on Wednesday night but have not ruled out the possibility that it was fired from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The paper states that “in the course of all the ‘march of return’ events in the past seven months, Islamic Jihad has not deviated from Hamas’s policy for managing the conflict. In any case, if indeed this time it was members of the terror organisation that fired the rocket without instructions from the organization’s headquarters, it is an interesting development”. Despite the influx of Qatari fuel to Gaza and the diplomatic talks behind the scenes, the IDF is making preparations for renewed violence on the Gaza border today.

YNET reports on an article in Al-Hayat which claims that through extensive efforts of Egyptian intelligence officials, Hamas agreed to cease all border violence, including March of Return riots and launching of flying fire balloons, in exchange for the lifting of the Israeli-imposed Gaza blockade.

Yediot Ahronoth reports on a harshly-worded letter sent by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked which reveals his opposition to a new law to allow the Government to bypass the High Court of Justice and deal with illegal immigrants.

Haaretz reports that officials are increasingly confident that a Jewish settler threw rocks that killed a Palestinian woman in her car recently.

Haaretz publishes an investigative article titled: ‘$6 Billion of Iranian Money: Why Israeli Firm Black Cube Really Went After Obama’s Team’ in which it claims that official company documents leaked to Haaretz reveal that the commercial spy firm was targeting the seizure of Iranian cash worldwide.