BBC News and The Guardian report that Israeli aircraft have struck Syrian army targets after rockets were fired at the Golan Heights on Saturday. The Israeli attack left three Syrian soldiers and seven foreign fighters dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel “would not tolerate” any firing into its territory. A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said it was unclear who had fired the rockets but added that the Syrian army was responsible for attacks launched from the territory it controls. Last Monday, the IDF said it had attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft system that fired on one of its warplanes. Syrian state media said one soldier had been killed in that incident.

In The Times, Anshel Pfeffer argues that Avigdor Lieberman’s refusal to serve in a new coalition represents an attempt to make the right-wing-religious axis an issue in the election campaign. Most Israelis, including those on the right, are either secular or “traditional”, and resent the radical ultra-Orthodox rabbis’ influence in public life. Lieberman hopes to make this a wedge to split Netanyahu’s support.

The Guardian reports that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has expressed uncertainty over the ability of Palestinians to govern themselves. Kushner told the “Axios on HBO” television program it would be a “high bar” when asked if the Palestinians could expect freedom from Israeli military and government interference. The Palestinian leadership has boycotted a diplomatic effort that Trump has hailed as the “deal of the century.” Although Kushner has been drafting the plan for two years under a veil of secrecy, it is seen by Palestinian and some Arab officials as tilting heavily in Israel’s favour and denying them a state of their own.

In The Guardian, Donald Macintyre examines how Avigdor Lieberman could be the person to end Benjamin Netanyahu’s reign. Macintyre argues that the collapse of the coalition negotiations is a severe personal blow to Netanyahu and that his chances of escaping prosecution have shrunk: “it remains to be seen whether Lieberman again emerges as a kingmaker, but it looks increasingly likely that Netanyahu’s one-time ally will go down in history as the king-breaker”.

Reuters reports that US President Donald Trump has urged the Israelis to “get their act together.” “Israel is all messed up in their election,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Bibi got elected and now they have to go through the process again? We’re not happy about that,” he added. Trump is expected to keep up his support for Netanyahu, a right-wing leader who has forged close ties with the US President over their tough stances on the Palestinians and Israel’s arch-foe Iran. But the latest uncertainties clouding Israeli politics are expected to further delay the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan.

Reuters reports that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah pledged on Friday to confront the US Middle East plan that President Donald Trump has touted as “the deal of the century.” Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the heavily armed Shi’ite movement, said it was unlikely Washington and its allies would launch a war against Tehran as they would pay a heavy price. He said the “balance of power” was preventing a US-Iran war, which he warned would also hit US allies Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Times reports that Kurdish forces in Syria are to release 800 women and children including the families of ISIS fighters from a detention camp in the northeast of the country. The handover, which takes place tomorrow, was agreed following a meeting between Kurdish leaders and local Arab tribes in the town of Ain Issa this morning, according to local news sources. Those released will be taken back to their families.

The Financial Times and Reuters reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated that the US is prepared to engage with Iran without pre-conditions about its nuclear programme but needs to see the country behaving like “a normal nation”. However, he said Washington would continue to work to “reverse the malign activity” of Iran in the Middle East, citing Tehran’s support to Hezbollah and to the Syrian government.

Reuters reports that a top military aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has claimed that US military vessels in the Gulf are within range of Iranian missiles and that any clash between the two countries would push oil prices above $100 a barrel.

The Financial Times reports that companies in the Middle East are ramping up contingency planning for potential armed conflict as US-Iran tensions rise and Gulf states’ relations with Tehran sink to a new low, corporate risk managers say. The move by global businesses to overhaul evacuation and business continuity measures comes in the wake of the sabotage of four oil tankers off the United Arab Emirates last month, which the US has blamed on Iran, and drone attacks on Saudi oil installations, which Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed.

All the Israeli media report that Prime Minister Netanyahu sacked Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked. Maariv speculates on possible replacements with Bezalel Smotrich and Rabbi Rafi Peretz, the heads of the Union of Right-Wing Parties demanding the posts for themselves. “Rabbi Rafi and I must be appointed now as Ministers of Justice and Education, and these portfolios must remain with religious Zionism,” Smotrich announced. There were also suggestions that the Justice Ministry was offered to Yariv Levin of Likud, although he rejected it saying there was no point in taking the position for only a few months. Kan news reported that Ministers Miri Regev, Ofir Akunis and Yoav Galant are expected to be promoted, and due to the fact that Yisrael Katz has been appointed permanently to the position of Foreign Minister, there is an option that the Transport Ministry will be given to a different minister.

In the commentary in Maariv, Ben Caspit writes: “A responsible Prime Minister on the eve of fateful elections would have paid any price to bind Ayelet Shaked to his party, and would have announced that she was his candidate for Justice Minister. One need not be a pollster to realise that Shaked is an electoral anchor. Her popularity spans several sectors and she is considered to be the one who carried the New Right nearly across the electoral threshold, almost entirely on her own. Under normal conditions Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t have missed an opportunity of this kind… But the conditions here aren’t ‘normal conditions.’ Nothing is normal here… After the next elections Netanyahu is going to need every finger possible to try to take the justice system apart before it takes him apart. If the New Right is elected to Knesset, I think he is going to have a hard time doing that. Bennett and Shaked have already announced that, from their perspective, a served indictment is a watershed moment. In closed-door meetings they have said that they are definitely not in Netanyahu’s pocket as he goes on the warpath to destroy the commonwealth. Yesterday he gave them a few more reasons why they needed to reinvent their spine.” Yediot Ahronot says: “Netanyahu should have learned from the last elections what happens when you let your gut govern your decisions or, in this case, your wife. Bennett and Shaked have no intention of sitting quietly on the sidelines. Bennett has already announced that he intends to run with the New Right, and Shaked—whose path to the Likud has been blocked, and who was informed by the Union of Right Wing Parties that she would have to make do with less than first place on the list—might join him. This time as party chairwoman. We’ll see what happens after 17 September, when Netanyahu is going to need their seats to form a government that doesn’t include Lieberman. If the New Right successfully crosses the electoral threshold and is the lynchpin of the next coalition, Lieberman’s demands will pale against what Shaked and Bennett are likely to demand.”

Maariv reports that the Blue and White party have said that the alternating leadership agreement between Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid will remain unchanged in the upcoming elections. “Despite the speculation and false rumours, Blue and White will run in the next elections in the same format that led it to the tremendous achievement of 35 seats just a handful of months ago, including the alternating leadership between Gantz and Lapid, precisely as was agreed to by the joint leadership and was presented to the public.” Yediot Ahronot reports the plight of the Israeli Labour party, the paper suggests that Avi Gabbay will not stand for the party leadership and may even quit politics.

Yediot Ahronot reflects on Jerusalem Day, both the “celebrations and violence”. As part of the celebrations tens of thousands of people marched in Jerusalem yesterday celebrating the reunification of the city in 1967 and access to the holy Jewish sites in the Old City. Yesterday morning clashes broke out at the Temple Mount between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli security forces after around 120 Jews had been allowed to enter the compound as part of Jerusalem Day celebrations. The rioters threw stones and chairs in protest over the police’s decision to allow non-Muslims to enter the holy site in the last days of Ramadan for the first time in 30 years. Following the eruption of the violence at the site, Jerusalem District Commander Maj-Gen Doron Yadid ordered police officers to be deployed to the compound in order to deal with the disturbances, prompting the forces to use crowd dispersal measures. The police pushed the Palestinian rioters towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they barricaded themselves, while continuing to hurl chairs and other objects in the direction of the security forces. Several protesters were arrested, one of which was a foreign national.

Haaretz reports US President Trump commented that he is “not happy” about the new elections in Israel, and that Israel “should get their act together.”  Trump made the comments during a short conversation with journalists in the White House, during which he was asked about comments that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made about the prospects of the administration’s plan for Middle East peace. “Israel is all messed up with their election – I mean that came out of the blue three days ago. So that’s all messed up. They ought to get their act together,” Trump said, visibly irritated. “I mean, Bibi Netanyahu got elected, now all of a sudden they’re going to have to go through the process again until September. That’s ridiculous. So we’re not happy about that.”

Israel Hayom reports that the Knesset will vote this afternoon to appoint a new state comptroller. The vote will be held by a secret ballot. The coalition’s candidate is Matanyahu Engelman, the chairman of the Council for Higher Education and a former director general of the Technion. The opposition’s candidate is Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Romm. This is the first time that a trained lawyer won’t be the state comptroller. The current State Comptroller Yosef Shapira is scheduled to end his term in July. Haaretz sees the vote today as a measure of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s strength.

Ynet reports that yesterday the Shin Bet revealed that last month a woman from the Galillee was arrested on suspicion of illegally travelling to Syria and joining radical Islamic terrorist organisation Jabhat al-Nusra. Ranwa Shinawi, aged 22 from the Arab village of Makr in the Western Galilee, spent a year in Syria and was arrested upon her return to Israel on 7 May. Shinawi was indicted on Friday at Haifa District Court for allegedly making contact with a foreign agent, attempting to join a terrorist organisation and other offences.