The fall-out over the resignation of the Oxford University Labour Club’s (OULC) co-chair continues. He resigned in light of the club’s decision to support Israel Apartheid Week at the university. He went on to describe some OULC members as having expressed sympathy with Hamas and that “a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews.” The Times says that former-Labour leader Ed Miliband has cancelled a planned talk at OULC, while the Telegraph and Daily Mail says that the government has urged Oxford University to act on the claims. Meanwhile, the Guardian says that the Labour Party will conduct an inquiry into the affair. The story is also covered by the Independent and Independent i.

The Financial Times covers comments by former Communities Minister and Conservative MP Eric Pickles, who attacked unions which use membership fees to help fund political campaigns, including those he characterised as “hard left anti-Israel” initiatives.

There is discussion over new government guidelines announced yesterday to prevent local councils and public bodies boycotting produce from specific countries, including Israel. Writing in the Telegraph, Jonathan Neumann, Director of Jewish Human Rights Watch says that boycotters against Israel target “the Jew among nations” and often by their own admission have no practical impact, merely a purely symbolic and damaging effect. In the Guardian, Owen Jones says that the government regulations is an attempt to “shut down dissenting voices.”

Meanwhile, the Independent, Independent i and the Sun all report that archaeologists in Israel have uncovered a 7,000-year-old settlement in northern Jerusalem.

Elsewhere in the region, the Times reports that the Syrian city of Aleppo is facing total siege after Kurdish forces allied with the Assad regime cut off the city’s last key access road. The online editions of the Guardian and Telegraph both say that aid convoys have been permitted by Assad’s forces to enter five besieged areas in Syria.

In the Israeli media, the top story in Israel Hayom, which is also covered prominently in Haaretz, is comments made yesterday by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot to high-school students in the coastal city of Bat Yam. Without explicitly criticising the handling of terrorists by some security officers during the current wave of violence, Eizenkot said, “The IDF must not speak in catchphrases such as ‘whoever comes to slay you, slay him first,’ or state that anyone holding a knife or a pair of scissors must be killed.” Yediot Ahronot’s Yossi Yehoshua fully praises Eizenkot not only for his comments yesterday, but his overall outlook, saying “Eizenkot appears to be the pivotal bastion of security and values within the instability that the country’s leadership has been demonstrating.” He predicts that Eizenkot “will leave behind not only a more professional army, but one with stronger values as well.”

Meanwhile, the top story in Yediot Ahronot is the approval given yesterday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the construction of the country’s first casino in the southern resort city of Eilat. The issue will now be discussed by a steering committee, but has faced broad opposition both within and outside the coalition. Writing in Yediot Ahronot, commentator Nahum Barnea suggests that the idea was “born in the clear knowledge that it has no Knesset majority.” However, given the falling tourism in Eilat, the casino has been approved simply “to show that the government is doing something.”

Meanwhile, Israel Radio news covers a report by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which claims that an Israeli air strike last night hit a Syrian army position south of Damascus. There has been no comment from Israeli officials, while the Syrian government and its Hezbollah ally have both denied that the strike took place.