The BBC covers both yesterday’s ramming attack and other violence this week.

The Independent reports Amos Hochstein, a senior advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, visiting Beirut yesterday to explore possibilities for solving a decades-old border dispute between Lebanon and Israel, a year after he brokered a deal on the maritime frontier between the two nations. “Chebaa Farms and the Kfar Chouba hills,” writes the paper, “were captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and are part of Syria’s Golan Heights that Israel annexed in 1981. The Lebanese government says the area, that has been a source of tension for years, belongs to Lebanon.” It also writes that Hochstein “expressed disappointment with Lebanon’s reluctance to implement reforms amid the country’s historic economic meltdown.”

The Independent features Iran accusing Israel on Thursday of trying to sabotage its ballistic missile programme through faulty foreign parts that could explode, damaging or destroying the weapons before they could be used. Iranian state TV described the alleged Israeli operation as “one of the biggest attempts at sabotage” it had ever seen. It accused Israeli Mossad agents of supplying the faulty parts, which the state TV report described as low-price “connectors.”

The Daily Mirror, The BBC, and The Daily Telegraph report that Iranian weightlifter Mostafa Rajaei has been banned from future competition by Iranian authorities for the “unforgivable” gesture of shaking the hand of Israeli Maksim Svirsky, a fellow competitor at the World Masters Weightlifting Championships in Poland. Claiming that he had “crossed the red lines of the Islamic Republic”, “The weightlifting federation bans athlete Mostafa Rajaei for life from entering all sports facilities in the country and dismisses the head of the delegation for the competition, Hamid Salehinia.”

The Independent also covers the impending demolition by Israel of the family home of 13-year-old Mohammed Zalabani, who in February boarded a bus at an Israeli army checkpoint in the Shuafat refugee camp and lunged at an Israeli police officer with a kitchen knife.

Kan Radio reports that the UN Security Council has renewed the mandate of UNIFIL – the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon – on the terms for which Israel pushed: maintaining UNIFIL’s freedom of action and its authority to take action without giving prior notice to the Lebanese government or coordinating with it. The news comes amid a period of increased tension on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and with Hezbollah having conducted a series of provocative steps and statements. Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan welcomed the decision, but said that “I will continue to demand that the Security Council condemn Hezbollah and demand that the Lebanese government act against its military buildup, which could lead to a serious escalation in the region.”

Yediot Ahronot features Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s reply to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s letter to her on Wednesday, accusing her of not representing him and his positions appropriately. Levin had objected, in particular, to Baharav-Miara’s response to petitions to the High Court of Justice against his failure to convene the Judges Selection Committee, whose restructuring he seeks as part of the judicial reform programme. Levin contended that: “I have been effectively left with no representation and no ability to ensure that my position will be brought intact to the court, which constitutes a serious blow to my rights as a litigant and undermines the legal proceeding itself. I consider myself unrepresented.”

In response, and declaring that “I will not be intimidated by threats,” Baharav-Miara wrote: “It is our duty to warn about actions that run counter to the law. It is being a gatekeeper, and silencing us seriously undermines [that duty]. My people and I will not be deterred by threats of dismissal.” She wrote further that Levin’s remarks did “not comport with the facts, and primarily ignore the attorney general’s professional duty to meticulously ensure, for the benefit of the entire public, that the executive branch’s actions are lawful. In cases in which the government acts without authority, promotes ad hominem legislation while undermining integrity and the rule of law, and refrains from exercising its powers for the public good without presenting relevant justification, it is the attorney general’s duty to point out these failings… Under my leadership, the Attorney General’s Office will continue to do its job of assisting the government to carry out its policy within the bounds of the law and will devise lawful legal solutions whenever possible to promote the government’s work, including when legal impediments emerge. At the same time, expecting the attorney general to disregard her duties, be silent when investigating petitions, or be deterred from functioning as a gatekeeper is an illegitimate expectation.”

Channel 12 reports on the Finance Ministry’s accountant general warning that the Israeli deficit is likely to rise from a current 1 percent to 1.5 or 2 percent by the end of the year. Ori Greenfeld, chief strategist of the Psagot Investment House, argued that while the present deficit was not particularly large, “In the next two years, government spending will be larger than this year—while revenue isn’t expected to grow, because a slowdown is projected because of the rise in interest rates and because activity in the technology branch is not recovering. It’s reasonable to assume that the deficit will cross 3 percent next year, and that will be problematic. If something unexpected happens that requires extra expenses, it’ll be very hard to get the money.” Prof. Eran Yashiv of Tel Aviv University, a member of the Centre for Macroeconomics at the London School of Economics, added that “The uncertainty in wake of the judicial coup has led to what’s been happening in the high-tech sector. It has led to a decline in tax revenue, investments have gone down following the fear of the political situation and the uncertainty. At the same time, Israeli start-ups have begun registering primarily overseas. In terms of taxes, this means that the companies that register overseas will be foreign companies that pay taxes to the country they’re registered in, and the declining investments reduced activity, which means fewer taxes.”

Israel Hayom reports that Israel’s 2.5 million schoolchildren will return to classrooms today as scheduled, after the Secondary School Teachers’ Association reached a last-minute agreement with the Education and Finance ministries last night. Under the terms of the deal, teachers’ salaries will be increased by 2,000 shekels (£415) per month with an extra 1.35 percent contributed to a special pension fund. These raises will be distributed gradually over the next four years, with an initial increase of NIS 800 (£166) per month. To mitigate Israel’s severe lack of teachers, existing educators will also work an extra hour per week.

Maariv’s latest poll shows the coalition continuing to fall in popularity in the wake of a wave of terror attacks, crime raging in Arab society, the leak of the foreign minister’s meeting with his Libyan counterpart, and the worsening clash between the justice minister and the attorney general. The poll indicates that if an election were held today, the Knesset would return the following seat allocations: National Unity Party 31; Likud 27; Yesh Atid 17; Shas 10; United Torah Judaism 7; Religious Zionist Party 5; Hadash-Ta’al 5; Yisrael Beiteinu 5; United Arab List 5; Jewish Power 4; Meretz 4. This result would put the coalition on 53 seats, the opposition on 57, and the unaligned Hadash-Ta’al-United Arab List on 10.