The Times and i both report that thousands of Israelis yesterday paid their respects to former President Shimon Peres in the plaza of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem. Peres, widely considered Israel’s elder statesman and the last in a generation of the country’s founding fathers, passed away earlier this week aged 93.

The Telegraph online says that Israeli security has thrown up a “ring of steel” in Jerusalem in order to protect the large number of global dignitaries attending Peres’s funeral today. The Guardian reports that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that he intends to attend the funeral, in his first visit to Israel since 2010. The same report also notes that former prime US President Bill Clinton visited Peres’s casket yesterday.

The Daily Mail and i both include obituaries of Peres. In the Telegraph, Kinvara Balfour warmly recalls an intimate dinner she enjoyed with Peres in Los Angeles, during his time as Israel’s president. Writing in the Evening Standard, ITV News Middle East correspondent Geraint Vincent describes Peres as having become “a symbol of Israel’s best intentions, and of a peace which may yet be achieved”.

In Syria, the Times reports that the United States is considering using force against Syrian government troops, which an unnamed official said “might cause the Russians to stop and think”. However, the Financial Times online says that Russia has rejected Washington’s calls to stop bombing Aleppo, while the Telegraph online reports that Moscow has accused the United States of “de facto” support for terrorism in Syria.

The Israeli media this morning is dominated by today’s funeral of Shimon Peres, which is being attended by a long list of global leaders. The front page headline of Yediot Ahronot is simply “Saying goodbye,” while Israel Hayom leads with “His final procession”. There is plenty of comment on Peres’s life, including a personal tribute from one of his grandchildren in Yediot Ahronot. Also in Yediot Ahronot, the prominent writer David Grossman says that Peres “did great things, he made a vast contribution to the State of Israel in the fields of defence, economics and science.  But he failed in the thing that he wanted to achieve more than anything—‎he did not succeed in leading Israel to a state of peace with its neighbours”.

Israel Radio news reports that Palestinian terror groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called on PA President Abbas to reverse his decision to attend Peres’s funeral.

Meanwhile, Yediot Ahronot says that none of the Joint Arab List Knesset members are likely to attend Peres’s funeral today. The party leader, Ayman Odeh said: “Peres of the 1990s has two positive points to his credit, for trying to make peace by building a partnership with representatives of the Arab public, but conversely we have strong opposition to the security-oriented man of the occupation who built the settlements.” He added: “I do not share in the entire festival, I can’t forgive the year 1949. He brought disaster on my people.”

Another Israel Radio item reports that Israel’s police carried out several preventative arrests to avoid any potential disturbances at today’s funeral. According to the chief of Israel’s Police, the arrests included a number of Jewish Israeli citizens.