The Metro and i include reports that an Israeli official has said a 40-mile long underground barrier, which is being constructed along the length of the Gaza border to protect against Hamas’s attack tunnels, will be completed within months.

The Guardian and i mention that US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. The Guardian says Trump pledged that as president he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.

The Guardian reports that world football’s governing body FIFA is under pressure from Human Rights Watch and 66 members of the European Parliament to either relocate or ban six lower-league Israeli football clubs which are situated in the West Bank. Those pressuring FIFA argue that their location violates FIFA rules as they should technically be under the purview of the Palestinian Football Association. However, the Israeli Football Association says that issues such as disputed territory are beyond FIFA’s jurisdiction.

The Financial Times interviews Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Judeh, who says that he is pushing for trade concessions from Israel to sell goods to Palestinians in the West Bank. Such an agreement, he says, would help secure public support for a “potentially sensitive” multi-billion pound deal to purchase gas from Israel’s Leviathan field.

Meanwhile, the online editions of the Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Financial Times, and the Independent, report that a prominent anti-Islamist writer and satirist has been shot dead outside an Amman courthouse in Jordan, where he was to stand trial for insulting Islam.

In Syria, the Times says that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are preparing for a ground war to capture Governorate capital Aleppo. The Telegraph reports that dozens of civilians in Aleppo have already been killed by Russian and Syrian jets. The online editions of the Guardian and Financial Times, and the Independent report that Russia has been directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes over activities in Syria, at a United Nations Security Council meeting.

In the Israeli media, the top story in Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Israel Hayom is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s separate meetings yesterday with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The two presidential candidates reportedly both expressed their support for Israel and the strong value they place on the relationship between the two countries. All newspapers note that yesterday’s meetings come on the eve of the first televised presidential debate between the two candidates.

In other news, Yediot Ahronot and Maariv prominently report on a weekend controversy where Netanyahu was perceived during a Channel Two interview to compare the plight of Elor Azaria, a soldier currently on trial for manslaughter for the killing of a wounded Palestinian terrorist in Hebron, with fallen soldiers or those missing in action. Netanyahu yesterday issued an apology via social media, saying: “‎I regret it if my words were misunderstood…I was not trying in any way to compare the suffering of bereaved families, suffering with which I am well acquainted, with the situation of other parents in a situation of distress. There is no comparison and there can be no comparison.”

Yediot Ahronot publishes lengthy exerts this morning from an interview given by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to the Israel Bar Association magazine. Mandelblit denied that his impartiality was compromised by having previously served as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary, saying: “I had no friendly, familial or political relationship with the Prime Minister”. He also indicated that if there is sufficient evidence, he would not hesitate in launching a criminal investigation against Netanyahu. Mandelblit said: “If reasonable suspicion comes to light, it will turn into a criminal investigation —‎ and I don’‎t care who the subject is.”