The Guardian, Financial Times and the online edition of the Telegraph all cover the visit of Sepp Blatter, the head of football’s world governing body FIFA, to the region. Blatter is meeting political leaders to try to broker a compromise ahead of a FIFA Council vote later this month, initiated by the Palestinian Football Association, which requests Israel’s suspension from FIFA and effectively ban the country from the sport. Blatter met yesterday with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will today visit Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. The Guardian online includes an opinion piece by Palestinian Football Association head Jibril Rajoub, calling on FIFA to suspend Israel over alleged discrimination.

The Telegraph includes an interview with Israel’s former-President Shimon Peres, who said that the two-state solution is key to repairing frayed ties between Israel and the United States. The Telegraph also notes that Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, a former Foreign Minister, has been appointed to head Israel’s negotiating team in the event that peace talks are resumed.

The Guardian online covers comments made on Argentinian television by senior Iranian official, Ali Akbar Velayati, who denied any Iranian involvement in the deadly bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. Iran is widely suspected of having ordered the attack to be carried out by its Hezbollah proxy. However, Velayati yesterday denied Tehran’s involvement and commented, “We recommend Argentina not fall under the influence of the Zionists.”

Meanwhile, writing in the Evening Standard, Sky’s Foreign Affairs Editor Sam Kiley outlines Iran’s regional ambitions, saying “Iran is on the march as never before” with effective control of Hezbollah, Syria’s Assad regime, much of Iraq and now an offensive in Yemen.

The Guardian online says that Syrian rebels including the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front have seized the largest military base in the north western Idlib Province.

The online editions of the Times and Independent both cover a report by the International Federation of Human Rights, which has accused the Egyptian security forces of using sex attacks to stifle public protests since President al-Sisi seized power in 2013.

In the Israeli media, both Yediot Ahronot and Israel Hayom lead with an Israeli police crackdown on organised crime rings, with a significant number of arrests having been made this week. Israel Hayom says that one notorious crime network has been “completely smashed.”

Maariv and the Walla news website both cover a Jordanian report which claims that Israel and Hamas have been in talks over the possible establishment of a floating seaport off the Gaza coast. Officials from the Fatah faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas have called on Hamas to end all talks with Israel. Israel Radio news reports that the International Monetary Fund has warned that the rehabilitation of Gaza following Operation Protective Edge is being hampered by a lack of international funding, with only around one quarter of pledged funds having actually been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, in Yediot Ahronot, military affairs correspondent Alex Fishman says that two recent attempts by ISIS to gain a foothold on the Syria-Israel border have been repelled by a combined force of the Western-backed Free Syria Army and the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front.

Haaretz and Israel Radio news both prominently cover a three-month trial arrangement being introduced by Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon, which will create separate bus lines for Israeli settlers and Palestinians travelling into the West Bank. Ya’alon hopes that the scheme will bolster security for settlers.