The Guardian has published an op-ed by UK Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry about Jeremy Corbyn’s warnings on the Iraq, Libya and Syria conflicts and argues that Iran looks like the next battleground. She states that: “More than two years on, that goal [in Syria] is further away than ever, even though the justification for the US-led coalition’s intervention in Syria – denying Islamic State a haven – was achieved months ago. Just in the past four weeks, we have seen unprecedented levels of escalation, aggression and land-grabbing by the competing foreign powers enmeshed in this terrible war.” She adds that “none of these acts have been justified by reference to international law or a UN mandate; they are instead what always happens when the world order ceases to apply and wars of intervention become a global free-for-all”. In the column, she doesn’t mention Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but writes that “the US announces plans for an ‘open-ended’ occupation of northern Syria; Turkey launches a brutal assault on Kurdish-held areas; Russian and coalition bombers trade devastating blows against each other’s proxy armies; Israel launches its biggest airstrikes inside Syria for 36 years in response to Iran sending a drone across its borders; and the Gulf states continue to feed money and weapons to the dwindling opposition and jihadist militias”.

The Telegraph, Financial Times and the Guardian report that fifteen Russians employed in Syria by a private security company were killed when an unexplained explosion rocked an arms depot at their base in the war-torn country. The incident happened at the company’s weapons storage facility at Tabiya Jazira a few days ago in the northeastern province of Deir Ezzor, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. After initial denials, Russia’s foreign ministry admitted on Thursday that five citizens were likely to have been killed in the bombing while fighting alongside pro-regime Syrian forces on 7 February. All were, according to multiple sources, employed by the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military contractor. Critics say Moscow uses mercenaries from Wagner to keep official military losses in Syria low. The official Russian army death toll in Syria last year was sixteen soldiers, although dozens of mercenaries are believed to have died.

Business Insider UK reports that according to a New York Times op-ed by Ronen Bergman, Israel had planned further strikes against Iranian and Syrian targets in response to the downing of an F-16 jet over Syria, but Russian President Vladimir Putin prevented an all-out attack by calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly.

The Independent has published a column by Robert Fisk where he argues that although Israel and Jews around the world have the right to be angry with Poland over the new Holocaust law enacted recently, which criminalises any accusation of Polish complicity in the Holocaust, Israel has yet to recognise the Armenian Genocide. He states that “Poland punishes anyone who speaks of Polish participation in the Jewish Holocaust, but accepts the Armenian Holocaust. Israel insists that all must acknowledge the Jewish Holocaust – and Poland’s peripheral guilt – but will not acknowledge the Armenian Holocaust”.

BBC News Online reports that the family of Oliver McAfee, who has been missing in Israel for almost three months, are travelling to the country to raise awareness of the search for him. McAfee was last seen cycling in Israel on 21 November last year. His brother and his uncle are travelling to the country on Friday to meet police, search teams, the British Embassy and the media.

The Daily Mail via AP reports that Israel’s attorney general on Thursday praised a police investigation into Netanyahu over corruption allegations, saying it was conducted “thoroughly” and “by the book,” even as the Israeli leader has shrugged off its conclusions. In a speech at Tel Aviv University, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit lauded the more-than-year-long probe into a pair of corruption scandals that have engulfed Netanyahu, culminating this week when police recommended that he be indicted on bribery and breach of trust charges in both cases.

The Daily Mail via AP reports that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday said he had positive discussions in Lebanon on how to break a “stalemate” with Israel over gas drilling rights along the countries’ disputed maritime border and maintain calm along the volatile frontier. Tillerson was in Lebanon on a brief stopover amid a growing dispute between Lebanon and its southern neighbour, Israel, over oil and gas reserves, and Israel’s construction of a border wall that Lebanon says encroaches on its territory. The US has been trying to mediate in the dispute, and Tillerson suggested Israel should stop building a border wall until the border between the two countries is agreed on. He also called on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia to cease its activities abroad to help reduce tensions in the region.

Yahoo News UK via AFP reports that an Israeli military court on Thursday handed four life sentences to a Palestinian convicted of murdering three Israelis at a West Bank settlement. Omar al-Abed, 19 at the time of the murders, had been found guilty by the court at Ofer, near Ramallah, of the premeditated killing of three members of the Solomon family in their home on July 21, 2017. Abed had entered a house in the settlement of Neve Tzuf, also known as Halamish, and killed the three civilians – Yossi Salomon, his son Elad and daughter Haya, with a knife.

Yahoo News UK via AP reports that a top Iranian general has lashed out at Israel during a commemoration for a Hezbollah figure killed in a 2008 Damascus car bombing that the group blamed on Israel. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, pledged retaliation for Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s ex-military chief who was considered one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists by Israel and the United States. Soleimani says the appropriate revenge for Mughniyeh’s slaying is “not launching one missile or killing one person, but the dismantling and uprooting of the baby-killing Zionist regime”.

The Daily Mail via AFP reports that the sole electricity plant in the Gaza Strip stopped working Thursday because of a lack of fuel, officials said, as concerns grew over worsening humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian enclave. The closure of the plant, which normally provides around a fifth of Gaza’s electricity, will exacerbate an already critical power shortage. Gaza’s 2m residents receive only around four hours of mains electricity a day.

The Israeli media continues to be dominated by reports about the police recommendation to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yediot Ahronot, Maariv, Haaretz and Israel Hayom all headline a speech by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who said that the police recommendations had been released at his instructions and that no ulterior or external motives would influence his decision regarding the prime minister.

Maariv has published a poll which claims that a majority of the public (59per cent) believe that Netanyahu’s involvement in the investigations undermines his ability to lead the country, versus 32 per cent who think that it does not.  When given a list of Yuli Edelstein, Gilad Erdan, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, Tzahi Hanegbi, Moshe Kahlon and Yisrael Katz and asked which government official should succeed Netanyahu if he declares himself incapacitated, 43 per cent said none of the above / no opinion.

According to the poll, if elections were held today, the Likud would receive 28 seats, following by Yesh Atid with 22, the Zionist Union with 15, the Joint List with 12, the Jewish Home with 11 and Kulanu, Yisrael Beiteinu and United Torah Judaism with 7 seats each.

Kan Radio News this morning reports that former minister Gideon Saar – who is considered by some to a future leader of the Likud – backed both the law enforcement agencies and the Prime Minister after opposition members demanded that Netanyahu declare himself incapacitated. Saar said at a meeting with Likud members in Bat Yam that the police were an investigative organisation and that it was the legal system that made the decisions.

Yediot Ahronot quote Moshe Kahlon, who said: “I rely on the attorney general, on his integrity and on his professionalism.”

Writing in Haaretz, Chemi Shalev says that “the Israeli police nudged Netanyahu just a little bit closer to the abyss this week. His worst-case scenario — indictment, resignation, conviction and, god forbid, incarceration — moved a notch from outlandish nightmare to reasonable possibility. Netanyahu has focused so far on undermining his police investigators but you can rest assured that once he smells weakness or discovers a mistake, he will pounce on the state attorneys with no less ferocity. Netanyahu knows that his coalition is unlikely to survive a decision to charge him with bribery and breach of trust, as the police recommends. The moment he feels that his guerrilla campaign against the rule of law has failed and senses that an indictment is forthcoming, Netanyahu will face a fateful choice between resigning and devoting his efforts to exonerating himself on deploying his ultimate weapon: Calling snap elections, before his potential Likud rivals manage to recover from the shock”.

In other news, The Times of Israel reports that ahead of a visit to the Munich Security Conference – also to be attended by Prime Minister Theresa May, Netanyahu said Israel will not accept any limitation on its activities in Syria and will continue to defend its citizens.