Most UK news outlets including BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, BBC News Online, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, report on the ongoing violence in Eastern Ghouta in Syria. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has demanded an immediate end to fighting in Eastern Ghouta, describing the rebel enclave as a “hell on earth”. Reports also indicate that the Assad regime is targeting funerals with airstrikes. Syrian and Russian air strikes on a rebel-held enclave on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, have killed more than 100 civilians for the second day in a row. Air strikes, rockets and artillery fire have been battering Eastern Ghouta in apparent preparation for a government ground assault. At least 250 civilians have been killed since the escalation began on Sunday, among them dozens of children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

BBC News Online reports that Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi says the situation in its ally Syria is “very complicated” amid growing concern a wider regional war could erupt. “Fear of war is everywhere in our region,” he said. It comes after Israel targeted Iranian sites in Syria earlier this month. Araqchi told the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet in London that Iran’s presence in Syria was not aimed at creating a new front against Israel, but to fight terrorism.

The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Financial Times and the Daily Mail report that one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s longest serving aides has agreed to testify against him in a corruption investigation that threatens his long hold on power. Shlomo Filber, an adviser to the Prime Minister for more than 20 years, has agreed to provide evidence in return for immunity from prosecution. A series of escalating investigations into alleged influence peddling and corruption have fuelled speculation that Netanyahu, who has been the Prime Minister since 2009, could call early elections or be forced to step down. He has rejected all the allegations and released a video on his Facebook page denying any wrongdoing and blaming a media witch-hunt. Filber, the Prime Minister’s former Chief of Staff, election campaign manager and now Director-General of the Communications Ministry, was arrested on Sunday. Investigators allege that he helped to facilitate a deal in which Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of the Israeli telecommunications group Bezeq, gave Netanyahu positive coverage on his news website, Walla, in exchange for policies that benefited his business.

The Guardian has reported that Egypt opened its border with Gaza on Wednesday, providing rare passage for thousands stuck in the coastal enclave who have lived under blockade for more than a decade. Thousands of Palestinians – some sitting since dawn next to suitcases packed in the hope that Egypt will allow them in – gathered at a stadium before being sorted on to buses. They raised their identification papers as their names were called out from a list. The Rafah crossing point will be open for four days on a humanitarian basis. Egypt has kept it largely sealed since 2013, citing security reasons. Egyptian authorities have accused Hamas of aiding groups involved in the Sinai insurgency. Last year, Egypt only allowed people to use the crossing on 36 days, according to the United Nations. Some 30,000 Gazans including medical patients, students and businesspeople are on a waiting list to travel through Rafah. But not all are guaranteed.

BBC News Online and the Guardian, report that Israel helped avert an alleged terror plot in Australia to bring down a plane last year. Both nations have confirmed that last July, Australian police charged two brothers over an alleged plan to blow up an Etihad Airways flight travelling from Sydney to Abu Dhabi. In a speech in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Netanyahu credited his nation’s intelligence agencies with preventing “an unimaginable slaughter”. Authorities have said the alleged plot was linked to the Islamic State group. At the time, Australian police said a home-made bomb, hidden inside a meat-grinder, was due to be carried on to a flight on 15 July but did not make it past security after the plan was aborted for an unknown reason.

The Independent reports that the US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has fired back at a top Palestinian official who suggested she should “shut up” after she criticised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “I will not shut up,” Haley said during a speech at the United Nations, claiming that she was speaking some “hard truths” about the Palestinian attitude to working towards a peace deal with Israel.

The Daily Mail via AP reports on the recent deportation of African migrants from Israel, speaking to Eritrean migrant Yohannes Tesfagabr. He said that in emotional confrontation with immigration officials one day last November, the 29-year-old sous chef accepted what Israeli authorities were offering: $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket to Uganda or Rwanda. Two weeks later he was on a flight to Uganda, together with five other Eritrean migrants he did not know. “They told me, ‘If you don’t leave you are going to jail,'” Tesfagabr recalled. “It’s forced. They tell you to say you are going voluntarily, but it is not voluntary. They force you to deport yourself.” The Daily Mail via AFP reports that hundreds of African migrants launched a hunger strike to protest Israel’s implementation of its controversial policy to expel or indefinitely imprison them, a spokesman for the group said Wednesday.

The Daily Mail via AFP repot that Israel began Wednesday to install houses at its first new settlement in more than 25 years, AFP journalists at the scene said. A number of prefabricated mobile homes were delivered to the site that will become Amichai, the first new settlement sanctioned by the Israeli government since 1991. A number of settlements built without permits from the Government have been retroactively legalised in that time, while existing settlements have expanded exponentially. Amichai is located not far from the Shilo settlement in the northern West Bank.

The Daily Mail via AP reports that the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared on Wednesday that his country “scored a goal” by signing a $15bn deal with an Israeli company to supply natural gas that will help turn Egypt into a regional energy hub. el-Sissi’s televised remarks were the first high-level comments on the deal that fueled controversy on social media. The project “has a lot of advantages for us (Egyptians). And I want people to be reassured,” el-Sissi said.

The Israeli media focus on developments in the Case 4000 police investigation. Shlomo Filber, the former Director General of the Communications Ministry, reportedly told detectives that his actions had been directed by Prime Minister Binyamin. Haaretz says that “Filber signed state’s witness agreement and testified against Netanyahu” while both Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv report statements by Filber that “he carried Netanyahu’s explicit instructions”. Israel Hayom says “Filber: Netanyahu requested, I executed; I was manipulated”

Kan Radio News reports that the editor of Walla, Ilan Yeshua, began to cooperate with the police more than a month ago and provided detailed testimony about the pressure from the Netanyahu couple in the past few years relating to media coverage. Yedioth Ahronoth reports that it was these recordings that prompted Filber to agree to become a state’s witness.

Yediot Ahronot reports on a story from several years ago, where Filber alleged that Netanyahu’s wife Sara screamed at him because he said she was not allowed to accept an expensive watch from then Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi. Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected Filber’s story.

Kan Radio News reports that Filber is likely to provide the police detectives with information relating to two other cases against Netanyahu.

Both Yediot Ahronot and Maariv also headline different scenarios with Maariv describing “continued tenure, incapacitation, resignation or elections”

Ma’ariv reports that the opposition intends to introduce a bill to dissolve the Knesset next week. The coalition parties have followed the Likud’s lead and have rallied behind the Prime Minister, while keeping an eye on the developments in the investigations. In related news, Yediot Ahronoth report that coalition partners Naftali Bennett and Moshe Kahlon have rejected the option to dissolve the Government before the Attorney General makes a decision over whether or not to indict the Prime Minister. They did, however, reach an understanding that they would not allow Netanyahu to call early elections because of the police investigations.

Haaretz and Kan Radio news report that Amnesty International has accused Israel of imposing a siege on the Gaza Strip and said that the collective punishment that it was imposing was causing a humanitarian crisis.

The Times of Israel reports that a Palestinian has died of wounds sustained last week during clashes with Israeli forces along the Gaza border.

 Israel Hayom reports that two new judges for the Supreme Court are due to be selected today. The Judges Selection Committee will meet this morning to select two new Supreme Court judges in place of judges Yoram Danziger and Uri Shoham, who are retiring. Among the leading candidates are Prof. Alex Stein, who is the candidate of the committee’s chairperson, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, and judges Shaul  Shohat and Prof. Ofer Grosskopf. It is believed that if there is no majority for Stein, Shaked will postpone making the selection.

Ha’aretz reports that the government will spend NIS 50 Million on 15 families who are due to be  evicted from an illegal outpost.

Maariv reports that the new fast train service from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, due to open at the end of March, will be delayed for 6 months.