The Times, the Telegraph, and the Independent report on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The Times reports that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt yesterday after the most serious exchanges of fire since a seven-week war in 2014. Since Monday Israeli airstrikes have killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, the militants said. The heaviest barrage of missiles fired from Gaza killed a Palestinian man in his Israeli flat and injured 50 Israelis. The fighting began on Sunday when Palestinians discovered an Israeli intelligence operation inside Gaza. Seven Palestinian Hamas fighters and one Israeli officer were killed. Hamas and other Palestinian factions retaliated, launching an estimated 400 rockets and mortar bombs into Israel. Israel responded with 160 airstrikes on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza.

Reuters and the Financial Times report on developments within Iran amidst US sanctions. Reuters journalist Lisa Barrington reports that the US have imposed sanctions on Tuesday on four people linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah who coordinate the Iran-backed group’s activities in Iraq and have designated the son of the group’s leader as a global terrorist. The US Treasury added Shibl Muhsin Ubayd al-Zaydi, Yusuf Hashim, Adnan Hussein Kawtharani and Muhammad Abd-al-Hadi Farhat to its Specially Designated Global Terrorists list. Al-Zaydi is Iraqi and the others are Lebanese. The State Department designated Jawad Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and described him as a “rising leader of Hezbollah”. The Financial Times and Reuters report that Iran hanged two foreign currency and gold coin dealers on Wednesday on charges of pushing up prices in the open market as the Islamic republic is struggling to keep the country’s economy under control in face of US sanctions. The Islamic Revolutionary Court – which deals with national security issues – executed Vahid Mazloumin and his “accomplice” Mohammad Esmaeil Ghasemi early morning local time. They were charged with “disrupting the economic, foreign currency and monetary system” through “illegal deals and massive smugglings of foreign currencies and gold coins”. Mazloumin, dubbed in domestic media as “the king of gold coin” was arrested along with about a dozen others earlier this year after the national currency, the rial, started falling dramatically in anticipation of crippling US sanctions.

Bloomberg and the Financial Times report on the continued after-shocks of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Bloomberg reports that US Senator Lindsey Graham called Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “unstable and unreliable” and said he and other senators were discussing sanctions against the longtime US ally in the wake of Khashoggi’s killing. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he and other like-minded colleagues don’t yet have a plan of action, but he lambasted the leadership of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. Crown Prince Salman “has been unstable and unreliable and I don’t see the situation getting fixed as long as he’s around,” Graham said. Graham was also skeptical of National Security Adviser John Bolton’s comments Monday that people who’ve heard a recording of Khashoggi’s murder don’t believe it implicates the Crown Prince. The Financial Times reports that with every passing day,  Salman looks more likely to survive the Khashoggi scandal. Since the Saudi columnist was allegedly strangled and his body dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, the propaganda campaign designed to insulate Crown Prince Salman from a crime supposedly committed by rogue aides has gone into overdrive.

The Israeli media reports extensively on the Gaza ceasefire announcement. Kan Radio and Maariv report that more than 500 residents of Sderot demonstrated yesterday against the security cabinet’s agreement to stop air strikes in Gaza. They accused the security cabinet of showing indifference to their plight and said that they had agreed to the cease-fire in order to prevent rocket fire on central Israel. Some of the demonstrators said: “Our blood is just as red as the blood of the residents of Tel Aviv.”

Ben Dror Yemini in Yediot Ahronot praises the ceasefire. “There are a thousand and one justified claims to make against the prime minister in everything pertaining to his conduct against Hamas. But the decision to endorse a cease-fire, particularly on his initiative, without voting in the security cabinet, was the right thing to do. Under the current circumstances, another bout with Hamas was not going to yield results that would have been different from what was accomplished in previous rounds of warfare and, for a change of pace, Netanyahu chose to lead rather than be dragged [into a clash].”

Ben Caspit in Maariv writes:“Let’s put this in order a bit: Hamas didn’t win this round. It scored several ‘PR’ achievements and managed to rehabilitate its public image domestically, after being humiliated over the weekend when it sold out for USD 15 million (in cash). In terms of physical blows, Hamas took much, much more than it dished out.” He adds: “To wit, comprehensive deterrence is still here. Hamas does not want another round of warfare. The problem is that it doesn’t end here. In all that pertains to public perception, Hamas won. It restored its image as the leader of the ‘resistance,’ it drove a million Israelis into the bomb shelters, it dictated the pace and it came prepared on the digital media level.”

Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahronot is scathing of the security cabinet, arguing that “the way in which the political echelon ended the current round of violence was scandalous. Every single member of the security cabinet likes to pose as Rambo, but not a single one of them is willing to take responsibility for military action … Israel has had divided security cabinets before, during times of war and in between wars, that were plagued by recriminations and leaks. But rarely has the internal rivalry reached the current low”.

Amos Harel in Haaretz writes that the cabinet decision provides “the impression that Hamas leaders believe they can gradually raise the intensity of military action against Israel without paying much of a price. But the security cabinet decision restores quiet to the Gaza-border communities, at least until the next eruption”. He adds: “As things look at the moment, Hamas is signalling that it has the upper hand, and the Israeli moves have not yet reminded it of the actual gap in capabilities between the sides. This is a problematic point of departure for reaching a long-term cease-fire.”

Yossi Yehoshua in Yediot Ahronot writes that “the results of the most recent round of fighting ought to worry every citizen of Israel. This isn’t a question of left or right, nor is it a question of whether one supports or opposes reaching an arrangement with Hamas. In a world where victories are determined by public perception, when the television screen is split between the demonstrations by the residents of the Gaza periphery who were protesting the loss of their sense of security, on the one hand, and the celebratory marches by Hamas in Gaza, on the other—there isn’t really any question as to who won. This round, the seventh since March — when Hamas decided to change the equation with Israel — ended in the worst way possible for the IDF and for Israel in every sense”. He adds: “If we also factor in the fact that Hamas successfully scuttled a special operation by an elite IDF unit in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night, even though that came at a painful price for Hamas, and the fact that Hamas recognised the importance of using the media to mold public perception, then the emerging picture is truly grim.”

Army Radio reports that the Yisrael Beiteinu faction is scheduled to convene this afternoon, after which Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman is expected to make a public statement to the media.

Kan Radio News reports this morning that Moshe Lion won the mayoral runoff in Jerusalem after overtaking Ofer Berkovitch by 3 per cent. Berkovitch said that there had been irregularities in several polling stations and that even though the results were not good, he still believed in the soldiers’ votes. Lion told his supporters that the citizens of Jerusalem had elected a unifier. Arutz Sheva reports that initially Berkovitch led by as much as 9 per cent over Lion, but after the majority of the ballots were counted the gap narrowed and Lion led by about 6,000 votes. In Ramat Gan, former MK Carmel Shama Hacohen defeated incumbent mayor Yisrael Singer. In Bat Yam, Likud candidate Zvika Brot defeated Yossi Bachar. YNET reports that in Kiryat Shmona, two-term Mayor Nissim Malka lost to 32-year-old Avihai Stern; Israel’s longest-serving mayor Shlomo Bohbot lost in Ma’alot-Tarshiha after 42 years in office. In Raanana, the first openly gay mayor, Eitan Ginzburg, who replaced Ze’ev Bielski after the latter retired, lost to Chaim Broyde by 17 per cent.