The Mirror is reporting that one of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s top priorities in her term of office is to secure a free trade agreement with Israel.

Reuters is reporting that Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday that France-based oil and gas company, TotalEnergies, could help his country solve maritime demarcation issues with Israel, according to a post from the presidency office on Twitter.

Reuters is also reporting that Tel Aviv’s bourse head is seeking more bilateral investing with UAE. Ittai Ben Zeev, the chief executive of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), proposed that Israeli brokers offer Emirati securities to Israeli investors and international brokers offer Israeli ones to investors in the UAE and Gulf region.

BBC reports that an Israeli court has jailed a former housekeeper for Defence Minister Benny Gantz who attempted to pass information to an Iran-linked hacking group. Omri Goren, 38, was sentenced to three years in prison under a plea deal that saw prosecutors drop espionage charges. The Israeli justice ministry said Goren told Black Shadow hackers he could send information on Mr Gantz and put malware on his computer in exchange for money.

In the Israeli media, Haaretz reports that Israel will review ways of helping the Palestinian Authority strengthen its control over the northern West Bank. It comes after some 1,500 Palestinians who were wanted for terrorist activity have been arrested in Operation Breakwater, as well as another 25 last night, and hundreds of planned terror attacks have been thwarted. Kan Radio reports that the IDF has prepared to begin to use armed unmanned aerial vehicles in the West Bank in response to the ongoing escalation in hostilities. Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig. Gen. Avi Blut and the Colonel Arik Moyal, the commander of the Menashe Regional Brigade that is responsible for the Jenin area, were recently given authorisation to use an IAF attack unit that operates armed UAVs.

Walla notes that the US is pressuring Israel to re-examine its military’s rules of engagement in the West Bank after an IDF probe into the killing of Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh determined that errant fire from an Israeli soldier was likely responsible. Last night, a Palestinian man was killed by IDF forces during an arrest raid early Wednesday in the northern West Bank. According to the IDF, troops entered the Far’a refugee camp, between Jenin and Tubas, to arrest a wanted Palestinian. The area has seen repeated clashes in recent weeks. “During the operation, an improvised explosive device was thrown, and shots were fired at the forces, who responded with gunfire,” the IDF said, adding that it was aware of a Palestinian fatality.

Maariv reports that 71 Israeli Arabs have been murdered since the beginning of 2022 – eight lower than last year’s figures but still a very high number. Yesterday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke to Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, and Central District Commander Superintendent Avi Biton, following Monday’s double murder in Lod, in which a 34-year-old woman and her teenaged daughter were shot dead in their car. Lapid said: “The horrific murder of Manar Hajaj and her 14-year-old daughter Khadra, along with the series of violent incidents of the past few days, obliges us to increase enforcement and the presence of police forces in the cities and to stiffen punishment for every act of violence… It is mind boggling that a mother and daughter were murdered. We will increase the efforts to rein in and to reduce violence in Arab society by all means at our disposal.” According to the report, the police has thwarted multiple planned murders this year, including 40 within the Arab sector, while at the same time they admit that that struggle is a daily and never-ending matter in the Arab sector. The police have seized thousands of illegal firearms which are used by criminals to kill rivals, to pursue blood feuds, to commit honour killings, to fight for power, collect debts and to commit extortion.

Yediot Ahronot notes that just a day and a half after Nidal Agbaria was murdered in Umm el-Fahm, yesterday unknown perpetrators fired shots at the home and car of Camel Adwan, a resident of Daliyat al-Karmel. Adwan operates a local website. No one was injured, but Adwan’s home and car were damaged. The police have begun an investigation. “I was with my wife and children in the house, and then we heard gunfire,” said Adwan. “I thought that it was somewhere else in the neighbourhood or that it was shots that had been fired in the air, and then we learned that the shots had been fired at our house. We can’t believe it. This could have ended in disaster.”

Israel Hayom notes that a new review of textbooks currently being used in schools operated by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and UNRWA remain “rife with content that incites against Israel and Jews”. According to the survey conducted by Israel Hayom and IMPACT-se, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, at least some of the textbooks omit any mention of the Holocaust, invoke anti-Semitic tropes and glorify attacks, such as the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The review also found that PA teachers have been instructed to take points off of students’ answers that fail to “connect between the massacres committed by the Zionists and Jewish-religious philosophy.” Jews are linked to the sexual harassment of women, and other classic anti-Semitic tropes were added to the curriculum, including a Star of David extending tentacles that grasp the planet Earth. Palestinian pupils are also taught that Judaism is a racist religion and that Jews control money, the media and politics, which they exploit to their benefit. Jews are described as being corrupt and liars, and as the “enemies of Islam in all times and places,” who are doomed to be annihilated as a result.

Also in Yediot Ahronot, the IDF has declassified an intelligence document from 2002 warning that Syria may have been attempting to launch a military nuclear programme. The publication comes on the 15th anniversary of Operation Outside the Box — a 2007 strike on a site in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor region suspected to be a secret nuclear reactor and the keystone of the country’s nuclear ambitions. Fresh footage also published by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit features the pilots who took part in the strike garbed in jumpsuits and hugging while others were seen sitting inside the fighter jets used in the operation. In letters sent by then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-defence minister Ehud Barak to then-Air Force commander Eliezer Shekdi, the two thanked him for the successful strike deep within Syrian territory. “This operation holds historical significance which will fortify Israel’s security and deterrence,” Barak wrote in a letter classified as top secret.