BBC News Online, Yahoo News via AFP, BT News via PA, the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times, the London Evening Standard, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail via AP report on the case of Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager arrested after attacking an Israeli soldier. She has accepted a plea deal that will see her serve eight months in prison. She will also pay a fine of 5,000 Shekels (£1,017) and accept a further eight-month jail term, suspended. The 17-year-old was detained after being filmed confronting two armed soldiers outside her home in December. The court’s decision means she will be released this summer because the sentence includes time already served, her lawyer Gaby Lasky was quoted by the news agency AFP as saying. Her trial opened behind closed doors at the Ofer military court in the occupied West Bank on 13 February. Her lawyer asked to have the trial open to the public, but a judge ruled that proceedings be conducted in camera for “the minor’s benefit”. Tamimi will plead guilty to one count of assault, one of incitement, and two of obstructing soldiers, Lasky said. Asked why she had agreed to a plea deal, Lasky said: “When they decided to keep her trial behind closed doors, we knew that we were not going to get a fair trial.”

The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian report on the secret Israeli strike more than ten years ago that destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor. According to reports, late in the evening of 5 September 2007, eight Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets took off from bases in the Negev desert. Flying a circuitous, two-hour route, often at heights of 100m to avoid radar detection, they approached the incomplete structure near the city of Deir Ezzor. Each launched two guided bombs. As the last F-16 circled away, the code-word “Arizona”, signalling a direct hit, was relayed to the command post, deep under Tel Aviv, where Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, was waiting with his coalition partner but political rival Ehud Barak, the defence minister. News of the strike emerged in leaks and intelligence reports from overseas agencies. It was finally made public for two quite separate reasons. Olmert and Barak, who frequently bicker in coded comments, are bringing out memoirs that will discuss the planning of the mission. The other reason is to send a message to Syria and Iran, as militias are massing near Israel’s borders and US President Donald Trump is threatening to tear up the deal that has put a hold on the Iranian nuclear programme.

The Spectator features an article by Toby Young who is currently visiting Israel with BICOM. Speaking about the visit, Young says: “In essence, you’re given a whistle-stop tour of the country while being briefed at every turn by senior ministers and officials on both sides of the divide. It’s seventh heaven for foreign policy nerds.” He reflects on the possibility of immigration to Israel and his adoration for the country stating: “I found everything about Israel, particularly its origins, deeply affecting, and in spite of not being Jewish I felt as if I’d discovered my people at last.”

BBC News Online reports that Israel Defence Force commandos tried to track journalist Uri Avnery to his meeting with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, and were prepared to target it. Avnery was to become the first Israeli to formally meet Arafat in South Beirut. As the siege of Beirut took place in 1982, Ronen Bergman writes in a recent book that an elite commando unit codenamed Salt Fish was set up to kill Arafat. His account claims the unit decided to take advantage of Avnery’s meeting and let the journalist and his two colleagues unwittingly lead them to Arafat. The head of the Salt Fish unit was Uzi Dayan, who went on to become deputy commander of the IDF. He told the BBC his team carried out between eight and ten attempts on Arafat’s life.

The Independent reports that one of Israel’s chief rabbis called black people “monkeys” during his weekly sermon. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef’s comments were denounced as “racially charged” and “utterly unacceptable” by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York City-based organisation devoted to battling antisemitism and racism. During his weekly sermon, the rabbi used a derogatory Hebrew term for a black person, before going on to call a black person a “monkey,” according to footage published by the Ynet news site. His office said he was citing a passage from the Talmud – the book of Jewish law.

The BBC World Service has produced a series of interviews about asylum seekers in Israel for their programme Newsday.

The BBC World Service also interviewed Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish’s whose daughters were killed when an Israeli tank fired at the family’s home in Gaza. The shelling took place as Israel was involved in operations against Hamas. The army said troops had fired shells at suspicious figures in Abuelaish’s house, believing they were observers directing sniper fire. He denies that any militants were hiding in or firing from his house, but instead of turning his grief into hatred, Abuelaish has pleaded for reconciliation.

The Guardian and the Telegraph report that Syrian rebels in one of the besieged Eastern Ghouta pockets have agreed to withdraw, under a deal which will put pressure on remaining rebels to surrender. Fighters from the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group in control of the town of Harasta had agreed to lay down arms in return for safe passage to opposition-held northwestern Syria and an offer to be pardoned under reconciliation terms with the authorities for those who want to stay. Some 1,500 militants and 6,000 of their family members will be transported to Idlib province in two batches starting on Thursday, according to Lebanese militia and regime ally Hezbollah, which helped broker the deal alongside Russia.

All the Israeli media is dominated by the fallout from the Military Censors Office’s decision to lift the embargo on the 2007 operation in which the IAF destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor.

The main headline in Yediot Ahronot is “After Syrian attack operation revealed, intelligence agencies battle over credit”; in Maariv, “World media is certain that timing of publication is Israeli message to Iran”; Haaretz is “IDF Intelligence and Mossad Exchange Accusations”; and Israel Hayom has “Battle over Credit”.

Haaretz published comments by Defence Minister Avogdor Lieberman – who formally signed off on the Military Censors Office decision to lift the embargo – in which he said that he regretted that decision, given the public squabbling that ensued. Kan Radio News quoted Matan Vilnai, the deputy defence minister at the time of the attack, who argued that that granting permission to publicise the details of the operation was a mistake that would not have any good results.

Kan Radio News reports comments by former minister Haim Ramon, who was deputy prime minister under Olmert and a member of the security cabinet in 2007, in which he says that then-defence minister Ehud Barak was obsessively against bombing the Syrian reactor. Ramon said last night that Barak had even said, in a small meeting, that it would not be terrible if the reactor at Deir ez-Zor became active.

Maariv publishes a comment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office which said that “the Israeli government, the IDF, and the Mossad prevented Syria from developing nuclear capability. They deserve full appreciation. Israeli policy was and remains consistent – to prevent our enemies from arming with nuclear weapons.”

In the opinion pieces, Yediot Ahronoth’s military affairs commentator, Alex Fishman, argues that: “It’s fortunate that this mass ego-trip that was unleashed yesterday here was curtailed briefly by the former Mossad director, Tamir Pardo, who reminded us all that the emperor has no clothes. After all, the Deir ez-Zor story is first and foremost a story about a disgraceful intelligence failure. Those same people who were responsible for acquiring intelligence and giving the warning, those same people who were supposed to prevent a situation from arising in which Israel might face an existential threat – failed.”

In Ma’ariv, Ben Caspit criticises Pardo, arguing: “Pardo, a man of great successes and with much to his credit, is doing a disservice to himself and others. Intelligence isn’t an exact science. One can’t know everything all the time. If a dictator, such as Assad, decides to build a nuclear reactor beneath the radar and keeps it absolutely secret (almost no one in Syria was aware of the project either), and if he uses a long series of diversionary tactics and takes all necessary means to conceal and secure that information, it could very well be that our intelligence services won’t detect it in the initial stages, but only subsequently.”

Maariv reports that the security establishment is concerned that Hamas will carry out attacks. There has been a worrisome spike in intelligence this past month about planned, large-scale terror attacks, including shooting attacks and possibly also kidnappings. The security establishment’s assessment is that despite the crisis in relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), the PA has not changed its policy and is opposed to transitioning to a violent conflict with Israel by means of armed men.