Over the weekend both The BBC and The Financial Times ran features on the topic covered in our main item: tensions on Israel’s northern border. The former joined residents of the northern town of Metula: “‘Two days ago people came [to the fence] to throw stones,’ says Mr [Levav] Weinberg. ‘They don’t have a uniform, but they definitely support Hezbollah because they were only saying bad things to us – shouting in Arabic and English – “we will kill you, we will take over your land”,’ he says. He shows me a video he filmed that morning of several armed men standing on a hilltop on the other side. He believes they were Hezbollah fighters. ‘It’s new,’ he says. ‘You didn’t see that before. You could see the Lebanese army and the United Nations [peacekeepers], but they don’t stop.’” The Financial Times also visits the north and finds increased Hezbollah aggression. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything this brazenly south of the Blue Line before,” said an international official in the region. The piece also quotes Israeli security and Arab arena expert Dr Michael Milstein noting the impact of the Israeli disunity wrought by the judicial reforms. “Two or three years ago,” he says, “Nasrallah would never have thought about…” the kind of aggressive moves now being deployed. “The fact he is now ready to take such a risk reflects the state of Israel’s deterrence in his eyes,” said Milstein. “The question is what the next step will be. That’s why Israel is so worried about the tents” established by Hezbollah on the Israeli side of the border.

Over the weekend, too, The Sunday Times covered the reform programme and the responding civil division, focussing on “tens of thousands of Israelis who are either emigrating or considering doing so in the wake of a radical judicial overhaul pushed through by the most right-wing government in their country’s history in defiance of eight months of unprecedented nationwide protests. Aside from the security concerns raised by the reservists’ stance, the consequences of the stand-off for Israel’s economy and society are potentially seismic. Israel’s economy relies heavily on the hi-tech industry, which for a decade has been the country’s fastest growing sector, accounting for 14 per cent of jobs and almost a fifth of GDP. Its vitality had previously been one of the proudest achievements of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. Now many of the secular, middle class Israelis who have made the country a world leader in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and other fields are protesting in the streets and thinking about moving abroad.”

The Observer and The Sunday Times also featured opinion pieces on Israel’s crisis, from Dahlia Scheindlin and Ayelet Gundar-Goshen respectively.

The Independent focusses on the Palestinian front, with two pieces. In the first, it reports Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, meeting in Egypt. The meeting, apparently spearheaded by Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is taking place in the city of el-Alamein on the Mediterranean Sea and will discuss “ways to restore national unity and end the division.” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is in attendance, though Palestinian Islamic Jihad has boycotted, seemingly in protest at detentions of its members by the PA.

In the second, the paper reports a rare show of public discontent with the ruling Hamas authority in Gaza, as several thousand people briefly took to the streets across the Strip on Sunday to protest chronic power outages and difficult living conditions. “Marches took place in Gaza City, the southern town of Khan Younis and other locations,” wrote the paper; “chanting ‘what a shame’ and in one place burning Hamas flags, before police moved in and broke up the protests. Police destroyed mobile phones of people who were filming in Khan Younis, and witnesses said there were several arrests. Dozens of young supporters and opponents of Hamas briefly faced off, throwing stones at one another. The demonstrations were organized by a grassroots online movement called ‘alvirus alsakher,’ or ‘the mocking virus.’ It was not immediately known who is behind the movement.”

The focus of much of the Israeli media this morning is the prospect of normalisation with Saudi Arabia. Following months of US negotiations with Riyadh, the discussion focusses on the likely Saudi demands and Israel’s possible response to them. In Yediot Ahronot, Ronen Bergman writes that “senior Israeli defence officials are worried that Netanyahu, who very badly wants a peace deal with Riyadh, may agree to nuclear facilities on Saudi soil despite the fact that opposition to this has been a central feature of Israeli policy for many years.” Though the assessment is that the US would retain monitoring rights to any Saudi nuclear programme, Bergman argues that this could not be guaranteed forever. Bergman’s view also is that progress on the Saudi front remains dependent on some progress being made with the Palestinians. However, “Sources in Netanyahu’s inner circle said they haven’t heard about any Saudi demand on the Palestinian issue. They added that the United States has never shared any [Saudi] demands on the Palestinian issue and said that if a demand were to be made, it would be made by the United States and would be symbolic only. Major concessions to the Palestinians are unlikely to be approved by the current government. In Netanyahu’s coalition, parties that are strongly opposed to concessions like these are liable, with a high degree of likelihood, to bring down the government should a proposal like this be tabled for discussion.”

Israel Hayom’s Ariel Kahana also covers the Saudi question, and downplays the significance of the Palestinian factor. “Saudi Arabia isn’t ready to hand over the keys to its own progress and the progress of the Arab Gulf as a whole in the Palestinians’ hands,” he suggests. “That is why bin Salman agreed to the peace agreement between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, and that is why he has personally done so much to advance Saudi relations with Israel, albeit informally.

From a different perspective, Haaretz looks at this and other problematic factors. Downplaying the rumours that Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz might be prepared to join Netanyahu in a centre-right government if it meant securing a deal with the Saudis, the paper maintains that the presence and actions of the far-right elements in the government remain a definite stumbling block with Riyadh, and with regional allies more broadly. It points to the Bahrainis cancelling Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s upcoming visit, in the wake, it argues, of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s latest visit to the Temple Mount last week. “The Ben-Gvir affair,” it says, “serves as an apt explanation as to why recent media reports on Saudi normalisation have pointed to the far-right wing of the Netanyahu coalition as a minefield. Washington believes that Riyadh will find it difficult to reach a historic breakthrough with Israel at a time when its neighbours, which signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, have avoided hosting Netanyahu and his foreign minister. Washington has been warning Netanyahu that accelerated construction in the West Bank settlements and remarks by some of the ministers are harming the chances of expanding the circle of normalization.”

Ynet features Prime Minister Netanyahu’s weekend appearance on US Fox News, in which he accused the protest movement as being designed to remove him from office. “They assembled a cast of former generals,” he said, “who tell the government if you don’t do what we say; if you go ahead with legislation, we’re going to do incite for mass disobedience in the army. I tell you the day that Israel’s elected government succumbs to threats by former generals, that’s the end of democracy and we’re not going to let that happen.”

In the first major incident in Jenin since the end of Operation House and Garden in early July, Army Radio reports IDF forces arresting two Hamas-affiliated terrorists early this morning. Troops exchanged fire with suspected terrorists during the raid, and the site warns that renewed IDF activity in the city can be expected in the coming weeks and months, as its terror infrastructure rebuilds following the Israeli operation.

Kan Radio reports the Supreme Court ruling unanimously that the recently passed Tiberias Law – voiding the requirement that caretaker mayors take a one-term cooling-off period before running for a full term in office – applies only in the next election cycle. They therefore conclude that Boaz Yosef, a close associate of Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, is ineligible to run for mayor of Tiberias in November.

Kan Radio also covers Yesh Atid and the Movement for Quality Government petitioning the Court last week in a bid to try to force Justice Minister Yariv Levin to convene the Judicial Selection Committee. Levin has so far refused to do so until the committee is restructured as part of his programme of judicial reform, despite the fact that many judicial appointments at various levels need to be made. The station reports that behind closed doors, Levin has said that he will convene the committee if the court instructs him to do so.

In a currently rare instance of Knesset bipartisanship, Ynet reports the passing in its first reading of a bill aiming to provide victims with the right to claim damages from those financing terrorist elements.