BBC News Online, the Telegraph and Yahoo News UK report that Poland’s Senate has approved a controversial bill that makes it illegal to accuse Poles of complicity in the Nazi Holocaust. The bill also prohibits describing Nazi death camps in Poland as Polish. It sets fines or a maximum three-year jail term as punishment.

The Daily Mail via AFP, BBC News Online and Yahoo News Online via AP report that the United States has designated the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, as a terrorist and imposed sanctions on him. The State Department said that Haniyeh had “close links with Hamas’ military wing” and been a “proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians”.

The Independent reports that the European Union has pledged an additional €42.5m (£37m) aid package for the Palestinian territories, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to cut US support to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA). The decision was made at an extraordinary meeting of the International Donor Group for Palestine at the EU headquarters in Brussels. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, announced the package on Wednesday in Brussels, warning Trump that the US would jeopardise the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by cutting the funding and “going it alone”.

Yahoo News UK and Daily Mail via AP report on the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. Netanyahu publicly corrected Gabriel over Israel’s stance on a two-state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians. Netanyahu had snubbed Gabriel in April when the visiting diplomat declined to call off meetings with Breaking the Silence. Netanyahu interrupted Gabriel when he talked about a two-state solution to the conflict, reiterating his position that his country would have to maintain security control in the Palestinian territories under any peace arrangement.

The Daily Mail via AP reports that Israel has summoned the Ambassador from Ireland over a bill which aims to ban the import of goods from West Bank settlements. The bill must pass several hurdles to become law. If it does, Ireland would become the first European country to ban settlement goods. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the Ambassador noted the Irish government opposes the bill, as well as an international movement known as BDS, which advocates boycotts against Israel.

The Independent, the Guardian, BBC News Online and the Daily Mail report that the Israeli legal rights group Shurat HaDin has said it is suing two New Zealanders for allegedly convincing the pop singer Lorde to cancel her performance in Israel, in what appears to be the first lawsuit filed under the 2011 Israeli anti-boycott law. The two New Zealanders, Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab, penned an open letter to Lorde last year in which they urged her to “take a stand” and “join the artistic boycott of Israel”.

BBC News at Ten has posted a video segment questioning whether Ahed Tamimi’s slapping of an IDF soldier was an act of terrorism. BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen used the clip of the altercation with the soldier and visited the Tamimi home in Nabi Saleh, meeting Ahed’s father Bassem Tamimi. The clip concludes with an interview with Likud MK Oren Hazan.

The Daily Mail via AFP and the Independent on a UN report which says it has identified 206 companies with ties to Israeli settlements. US Ambassador Nikki Haley said that it was “a waste of time and resources” that showed an “anti-Israeli obsession”. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights released the report that did not name the companies but could pave the way to a “blacklist” of businesses that could be targeted for an international boycott.

The Daily Mail via AFP and Yahoo News UK via AFP  report that Haim Gouri, the Israeli poet who fought with an elite combat unit, covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann and became a national icon, died Wednesday aged 94, his family said. Gouri published more than 20 books, with his poetry including reflections on his time as part of the elite Palmach combat unit predating Israel’s founding. A number of his poems were set to music and became popular songs in Israel. His coverage of the trial of Nazi war criminal Eichmann later became a book, Facing the Glass Booth.

The Guardian reports claims by an Israeli human rights group HaMoked that a Palestinian teenager from the West Bank who was arrested by Israel was sent to the Gaza Strip, despite never having been there in her life.

All the Israeli media lead with headlines about the death of poet, journalist and songwriter Haim Gouri, who died yesterday at the age of 94. Yedioth Ahronoth devotes the first six pages of its news section to Gouri.

Haaretz and Maariv report on statements by Defence Minister Lieberman at the INSS Conference yesterday. Referring to a possible clash in the north, Lieberman said that “it won’t end without boots on the ground” adding: “There isn’t going to be another war along the lines of the Yemenite Step [dance] – one step forward, one step back. We need from the first moment to go with the highest and most powerful profile in order to end [the war] as swiftly as possible. There mustn’t be images as there were in the Second Lebanon War, when the civilians in Beirut went to the beach while in Tel Aviv people sat in bomb shelters. That isn’t going to happen, and that needs to be clear to the other side as well.” Education Minister Naftali Bennett is quoted as saying that a war in the north could “lead to damage to the Israeli home front, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the War of Independence. We will view rocket fire on Israel as a declaration of war by Beirut.”

Israel Hayom reports that the US has designated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on the global terror list. Writing in the paper, Eyal Zisser comments that “the American measures are largely symbolic since the Hamas leader presumably does not have any assets in the US that the administration could seize. One might also ask how it is that someone like Haniyeh had not been on the blacklist up until now. That said, the message from Washington is clear – Haniyeh and Hamas are part of the problem, not the solution, and the Trump administration has no intention of embracing Hamas and holding a dialogue with it in the vain hope that over time it will become more moderate.” Zisser added that the move is also “a message to Abu Mazen, who believes that he can toy with the Trump administration the way he did with Trump’s predecessors at the White House and who wants to handle Hamas through a process of intra-Palestinian reconciliation instead of fighting it”.

Yediot Ahronoth reports that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has rebuffed the criticism he faced for the pace at which the police investigations into allegations of wrongdoing by Prime Minister Netanyahu have been conducted. Speaking at a conference at the Israel Bar Association, Mandelblit said: “It’s important to reiterate: no one is above the law. The evidentiary test is uniform for all. That was the case with respect to beginning the investigation and conducting it, and that will also be the case if we find sufficient evidence to prove that a crime was committed, which justifies an indictment.” Mandelblit said that the law enforcement agencies – the police, the State Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office – are independent, and he urged the public not to ascribe political or other ulterior motives to the law enforcement officials who are involved in the investigations into the Prime Minister’s actions.

He added that the police investigations as being in their “final stretch”.

Israel Hayom headlines that 61 MKs are opposed to the bill that was passed by the Polish parliament about the Holocaust: “The Truth is Not for Sale”. This morning, Kan Radio News reported that the Senate in Warsaw approved the bill that prohibits saying that Poland was responsible for the war crimes that the Nazis committed on its soil during World War II.

Yediot Ahronoth and Maariv both report on the tension between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and journalist Ben Caspit. Caspit’s book on Netanyahu is about to be published in Hebrew.