The Metro includes a brief story covering an attempted attack on Israel’s Embassy in Turkey’s capital Ankara yesterday. An assailant armed with a knife stabbed a security guard at the entrance to the Embassy and attempted to gain access to the building, but was was shot and wounded outside. Israel and Turkey recently signed a reconciliation agreement, re-establishing full diplomatic relations for the first time in six years, including fully operational diplomatic missions.

In Syria, the Guardian online reports that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said that there is “strong” evidence that Russia carried out an air strike on a United Nations’ (UN) aid convoy earlier this week near Aleppo, which signalled the collapse of a tentative ceasefire. The Independent online says that the UN has agreed to resume aid convoys after initially suspending them in the wake of the air strike.

The Financial Times online says that US Secretary of State John Kerry called for Russia and the United States to ground aircraft in “one final chance for a Syria truce”. However, the Times online says that Russia has dispatched its only aircraft carrier to the Syrian coast “signalling a dramatic expansion of its military campaign there”.

The Times reports that x-ray scans and algorithms have deciphered the text to a 1,400 year-old burnt Dead Sea manuscript, revealing a section from the biblical Book of Leviticus. It is the first time that such technology has been able to cast light on the ancient artefacts, found near the Dead Sea in Israel in the 1970s. The article quotes a representative of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

In the Israeli media, the top item in Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Haaretz is yesterday’s meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. It was likely the final meeting between the two leaders before Obama leaves office in January. The overall consensus is that the meeting was conducted in a friendly atmosphere and that although the contentious issue of settlements was raised, it was not a major focus of the conversation.

Writing in Yediot Ahronot, Orly Azulai suggests that President Obama’s “main objective is to build the bridge that will bring [Hillary] Clinton to the White House” and so his meeting with Netanyahu was designed to focus on the strength of US-Israel relations.

Meanwhile, Israel Radio news notes that Netanyahu will today address the UN General Assembly.

Haaretz says that former-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and leading Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni have met in New York to discuss “political scenarios”. Rumours have been circulating in recent weeks that Barak is preparing for a political comeback. Last week, he sharply criticised Netanyahu in both the American and Israeli media over his handling of relations with Washington.

The top story in Israel Hayom is speculation, via a Lebanese news outlet, that an opposition group in Syria is prepared to return the body of legendary spy Eli Cohen to Israel. Cohen befriended the very highest echelons of Syria’s political and military leadership in the 1960s and the information he passed back to Israel was key during the Six Day War in 1967. His true identity was eventually uncovered and Cohen was publicly hanged. Syria’s government has since refused to return his body to Israel.