BBC News Online, the London Evening Standard, Metro, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, the Independent and the Daily Express report that Israel has attacked militant sites in Gaza after coming under the heaviest barrage of mortar and rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave in years. The Israeli army said air strikes hit 35 targets, including a cross-border tunnel, belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad – Gaza’s main militant groups. In Israel, an empty kindergarten was hit when militants fired more than 30 mortars earlier in the day. Israeli fighter jets struck seven sites across the Gaza Strip, hitting what the Israeli military said were “six military compounds, munition storage warehouses, naval targets, and terror headquarters”. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “Hamas and Islamic Jihad have already paid a heavy price and the bill has just been presented to them.” Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Education said a school was hit by shrapnel from Tuesday’s air strikes, though there were no initial reports of Palestinian casualties. The Israeli military said the biggest volley of mortar shells was fired at several sites in Israel in the early hours, with most intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile defence system.

The Guardian, the Daily Mail via AFP and ITV News reports that Hamas has said Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have agreed to a ceasefire as long as Israel also ceases hostilities. Following dozens of rocket and mortar launches at Israel throughout Tuesday and overnight, and Israeli tank fire and airstrikes in Gaza, there were no reports of violence more than two hours after the announcement of a truce by Hamas on Wednesday. The Israeli intelligence minister, Israel Katz, sidestepped questions on whether Israel had agreed to a ceasefire but said it was not interested in an escalation towards war. “It all depends on Hamas. If it continues [to attack], I don’t know what its fate will be,” Katz said on Israel Radio.

The Telegraph and the Times report that Russia and Israel have reportedly reached an unprecedented deal which would allow Bashar al-Assad’s forces to take remaining rebel territory in southern Syria – so long as Iranian fighters do not participate. Moscow appears to have capitulated to Israeli demands to hold back Tehran-backed militias 15 miles from the occupied Golan Heights, according to Israeli and Saudi reports. In return, Israel will not stand in the way of any Syrian regime offensive on the city of Deraa and territory along the Israeli and Jordanian border. Russia said on Monday only Syrian army troops should be on the country’s southern frontiers, which appeared to be directed at Iran.

The Financial Times, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Sunand Channel 4 News report that Roman Abramovich will be able to visit the UK for up to six months as an Israeli citizen, but he will not be able to work without a visa, the British government said on Tuesday. Abramovich, who is Jewish, obtained Israeli citizenship on Monday after his application for a new UK investor visa was delayed by stringent new checks. Border chiefs have a range of powers they can deploy to override visa waiver schemes. The senior source said: “Having an Israeli passport is not a backdoor at all. There are a whole range of powers that can be used to stop Abramovich from coming in.”

The Guardian, the Telegraph, BBC News Online and the Daily Mail via AP reports that the four key leaders in war-torn Libya have agreed at a summit in Paris to an ambitious, and potentially unrealistic, plan to stage “credible, peaceful” parliamentary and legislative elections in the country on 10 December. French President Emmanuel Macron, hailed the agreement as a turning point in efforts to bring about reconciliation in Libya, saying it represented a new impetus to restore Libya’s sovereignty. “We now have clear commitments for the country, an approved calendar for parliamentary and presidential elections,” he said. The parties also agreed that by 16 September they would establish the constitutional basis for elections and adopt the necessary electoral laws.

The Telegraph reports that the United States led protests on Tuesday as Syria took over the rotating presidency of the Conference on Disarmament, at a time when Damascus is widely accused of using chemical weapons. The US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva said it was “a travesty” that Syria would head the Conference on Disarmament, leaving briefly when the Syrian representative took the floor. Britain also protested against the move.

The Times reports that Turkish media have blamed the “Jewish lobby” for the sudden drop in the value of the country’s currency, based on a tweet from an Israeli academic. The Turkish lira has fallen by 20 per cent against the dollar this year and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly blamed an unspecified “interest-rate lobby” for manipulating the currency. It seized upon a tweet by Edy Cohen that the crisis in the Turkish currency began shortly after the Israeli ambassador to Turkey was ordered to temporarily leave. Dr Cohen is a specialist in Nazi propaganda in the Arab world at Bar-Ilan University. “Don’t you know that half of the world’s wealth belongs to only one Jewish family, which is Israel’s primary supporter?” Dr Cohen said, in a tweet directly addressing President Erdogan and including the hashtag “Support the Turkish lira”. It was intended to be ironic, but was quickly picked up by Turkish media.

The Daily Mail via AFP reports that a Lebanese court on Tuesday charged a high-ranking officer with “fabricating” evidence that a prominent actor and writer had been illegally conspiring with Israel. Lebanon, which technically remains at war with its southern neighbour, upholds a boycott of Israeli products and of contact with its nationals. Lieutenant Colonel Suzanne Hajj “was charged with fabricating the case of collaboration with Israel brought against actor Ziad Itani, as well as hacking websites and inventing non-existent crimes”, the judicial source said. Hajj, who headed a unit in Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces tasked with fighting cybercrime, was detained for questioning in March over suspicions she had enlisted the help of a hacker to fabricate conversations between Itani and an Israeli woman.

The Independent published a column by journalist Robert Fisk which argues that in the Middle East where the State Department previously dominated, it is now the Kremlin which calls for “restraint” between Israel and Iran and Putin is fast becoming a friend to all.

The Daily Mail via AFP reports that the Czech Republic on Tuesday reopened its honorary consulate in Jerusalem, the CTK news agency reported, after President Milos Zeman voiced his wish to move the Czech embassy to the city from Tel Aviv. The CTK named Dan Propper, a 78-year-old Israeli businessman of Czech origin, as the new honorary consul. “I see my contribution as being especially focused on economic relations because I have links to the local entrepreneurial community,” Propper told the CTK. Opened in the early 1990s, the Czech honorary consulate in Jerusalem was closed in 2016 due to the death of the honorary consul. The Czech Foreign Ministry vowed in April that the decision to reopen the honorary consulate had “no influence on the final agreement on Jerusalem,” adding that Prague “fully respects the common position of the European Union that considers Jerusalem as the future capital of both states, that is to say, the State of Israel and the future state of Palestine.”

BBC News Online reports that The Shura Council of Saudi Arabia, the country’s formal consultative body, has approved a law to criminalise sexual harassment in the kingdom. The aims of the measure are “fighting the crime of harassment, preventing it, punishing perpetrators and protecting victims in order to preserve the privacy, dignity and individual freedoms as guaranteed by Islamic jurisprudence and regulations in place”. The law provides for penalties of up to two years in prison and fines which could amount to $26,600 (£19,641).

The Israeli media is dominated by news and analysis on Gaza.

Maariv reports that Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday that the IDF would continue to exact a price for any fire out of the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “Israel will exact a painful price from anyone who tries to harm it. We view Hamas as bearing responsibility for preventing these attacks on us.”

The Palestinian Maan website reported that at 4:00 AM this morning a cease-fire went into effect, after having been postponed twice. Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy Hamas leader, said in a Hamas statement that its consent to the cease-fire was attained through the mediation of a number of parties. The resistance will be committed to the understandings as long as Israel is, al-Hayya said. Islamic Jihad also said last night that a cease-fire had been reached with both Islamic Jihad and Hamas accepting joint responsibility for the fire at Israel. Haaretz reports on that Israel’s defence establishment’s assessment is that the current round of violence in Gaza has come to an end. Understandings regarding a ceasefire were reached unilaterally between Hamas and Egyptian mediators and the IDF has said it will respect the calm if Hamas bring about an end to fire on Israel. On Army Radio this morning, Israel Education Minister Naftali Bennett said: “There are no understandings. What there is, is Israeli actions against Gaza and there is what the other side decides and it will decide its fate, but we did not reach any agreements with Hamas. We  take action in keeping with Israel’s interests.”

Maariv reports on responses by opposition figures, with Labour leader Avi Gabbay criticising the government’s overall strategy for Gaza. Gabbay said: “Ever since the last round, Operation Protective Edge, our government hasn’t done anything to prevent the current impending round. The political deadlock and the fact that there isn’t a leadership that has had the wisdom to create regional alliances for the war on terror have simply left Hamas alive. This difficult day has already cost us the injury of civilians and soldiers, and let’s hope it ends with that.”

Speaking on Kan Radio News, Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said that Iran was behind the escalation, which wanted to set the Gaza sector on fire.

In an analysis, Yossi Melman in Maariv argues that “ nobody is willing to give a definite assessment as to where events in Gaza are headed, but from talks with ministers and with IDF officers, the impression is that it is their assessment that yesterday’s day of battle will not have a continuation”.

Conversely, writing in Yediot Ahronot, Alex Fishman believes that the sides are “now in freefall in Gaza. Without a parachute, without a mediator, without a dialogue – only fire. Under the conditions that have developed in the course of the past day, the fire will end only when one of the sides gives up. In other words: only when Islamic Jihad is satisfied with the results and decides to stop firing.” He warns that “it is likely that we will quickly transition into targeted killing operations against Hamas’s leaders, long-range rocket fire out of Gaza at the Israeli civilian home front, as well as attempts to cross the fence and to carry out terror attacks in Israeli territory. An effort will also be made to open a second front against Israel in the West Bank as well.”

In Maariv, Ben Caspit describes a “wearily familiar game of ping pong, predictable and depressing, which every time, once again, leads us to the same impasse from which nobody gains”. He added that “even if Israel were to decide to invade Gaza, to take over the Gaza Strip and topple Hamas, what then? Is there a plan? To whom do we give the keys? What happens now? Who is in charge? What do we do? What does Israel want for Gaza?”

Yossi Yehoshua in Yediot Ahronot argues that “anyone who wants to restore quiet to the residents of the Gaza periphery communities must restore Israeli deterrence so as to avert more rounds or even a large-scale operation,” adding that “at the end of the day, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders said that they did not want an escalation. If this round ends now, they can be pleased, Israel much less so.”

In Haaretz, Zvi Barel writes that “Hamas views Islamic Jihad’s actions as violating the rules which have governed the conduct of the two groups since the start of the internal Palestinian reconciliation process, in particular, the rules – dictated by Egypt since it has assumed control of the talks – concerning conduct towards Israel.”