There is widespread coverage this morning of a statement sent by the White House to Congress saying that evidence indicates Syrian President Assad used sarin nerve gas on a “small scale.” This story is covered by the Times, Independent, Guardian, Daily Mail, Financial Times and the Telegraph, all of which say that although the disclosure contained a number of caveats, it is likely to increase pressure on US President Barack Obama to intervene in the bloody Syrian conflict after he warned last August that use of chemical weapons in Syria constituted a “red line” and would be a “game changer.” Meanwhile, the Guardian online includes a lengthy feature on the precarious position of Syria’s Christian community.

The Guardian, Independent, Times and the online edition of the Telegraph report that the Israeli Air Force yesterday shot down a suspected Hezbollah drone five miles off the coast of the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he views the attempted breach of Israel’s borders with “the utmost severity.”

The Times and the online edition of the Telegraph report that the Israeli army has announced an end to the use and stocking of white phosphorous, which drew sharp criticism when it was deployed during Operation Cast Lead, a three-week incursion into the Gaza Strip in 2008 – 2009. Although phosphorous bombs are permitted and widely used by Western armies to create smoke screens, they are not allowed to be used in civilian areas. The IDF said that it has developed alternative munitions.

An announcement by Israel’s Justice Ministry, ruling out prosecutions over the death in custody of Ben Zygier, Israel’s ‘Prisoner X’ is covered by the Evening Standard, Independent i, Times online and the Telegraph online. Australian-born Zygier, thought to have been a Mossad agent, committed suicide while under surveillance in solitary confinement in Israeli detention in 2010.

The Telegraph online reports on a ruling yesterday by the Jerusalem District Court, which concluded that police at the Western Wall wrongfully arrested five women earlier this month. The ruling could prove to be a landmark judgment in the ongoing campaign for women to hold their own prayer services at the Western Wall, a departure from orthodox Jewish tradition, with regulations banning such practice until now. Yesterday’s decision emphasised that a previous Supreme Court ruling on prayer arrangements in 2003 was only a recommendation rather than an order and should not be the basis of arrests.

There is widespread coverage in the Israeli media this morning of the attempted drone infiltration into Israel, which is attributed to Hezbollah in all reports. A headline in Yediot Ahronot says that the drone was “A hair’s breadth from Haifa” while Sof Hashavua suggests that the drone may have been targeting Israel’s gas rigs in the Mediterranean. Writing in Yediot Ahronot, Alex Fishman suggests that the incident was a political move on behalf of Hezbollah, keen to divert attention from its involvement in Syria and instead display its commitment to armed struggle against Israel.

The lead story in Haaretz, Maariv and Israel Hayom is yesterday’s statement by the United States that the Assad regime used nerve gas during the conflict in Syria. This follows reluctance earlier in the week by the Obama administration to concur with as Israeli assessment that sarin gas had been used in an incident near Aleppo last month.

Meanwhile, Haaretz and Israel Hayom also give prominence to developments in the trial of former-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Yesterday, a key witness, Zeev Ben Aryeh, Israel’s former Ambassador to Belarus, whose actions are crucial in the case took to the stand and denied his previous statements to the police which had appeared to implicate Lieberman’s wrongdoing.