The Times and the BBC both cover the release of Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie who were abducted from Nahal Oz kibbutz by Hamas on October 7. Following this, The Guardian reports that on Sunday evening, a group of families of those held hostage in Gaza met the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, at his residence in Jerusalem, as internal pressure increases on the Israeli Government to negotiate the release of more than 200 people held by Hamas in Gaza.

The BBC, Sky News and the Financial Times all cover the continued flow of aid to Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, as a convoy of 20 trucks of international aid entered Gaza on Saturday morning. ITV News reports that, the Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick, confirmed the UK government is working to allow British citizens trapped in Gaza to leave through the Rafah crossing. The Times also reports that UK government ministers have been urged to introduce refugee routes for Israelis and Palestinians in response to an expected surge of people fleeing the conflict.

The Times, the Telegraph, the BBC, Sky News and ITV News all cover growing fears that this war could spiral into a wider regional or even global conflict through the involvement of Iran, its proxies in Syria and Lebanon, the United States and even Russia. 

Deborah Haines writes for Sky News that “The US – sensing the danger, in particular from Iran – is ramping up its military presence around Israel, announcing the deployment of additional air defence systems over the weekend on top of two carrier strike groups.

But it’s not clear whether even the might of the world’s most powerful military will be enough to prevent a melting pot of competing ambitions among rival factions from erupting into a full-blown Middle East war – one with global consequences.”

In the Financial Times, Tom Fletcher, also writes about the global consequences of the ongoing conflict in Israel, stating that “three men are preparing to exploit the crisis. The first is Donald Trump, whose vandalism of America’s credibility, encouragement of the Israeli hard right, and orphaning of the rules-based order has made it so much harder for his successor to lead now. The second is Russia’s Vladimir Putin, an opportunist gangster anticipating that the conflict will distract, divide and exhaust the liberal democracies. And the third is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hopes the misery on screens across the Muslim world will bury Israeli and US hopes of normalisation with Arab states for another decade and prevent alliances among his enemies. The task is to prove those three men wrong.”

Furthermore, the Times and Sky News report that Hamas terrorists were carrying instructions on how to make chemical weapons during the attacks on October 7, following claims made by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.

The Times also reports that two more British-Israelis, Noiya Sharabi and Yosef Malachi Guedalia were killed during the Hamas attacks. At least ten of Hamas’s victims held British citizenship, with several other Britons still missing.

The BBC, the Guardian and Reuters all cover the pro-Israel protest that took place in Trafalgar Square yesterday evening to call for the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The communities secretary, Michael Gove, told the rally, ““There are no words to describe the suffering of families who have seen their relatives butchered in front of them and relatives who live in hope that those who were living peacefully in their homes just two weeks ago and are now in a Hamas dungeon should be freed”.

Amos Harel in Haaretz maps the steps taken by the US and Iran in recent days. As of Sunday night, 62 American and Israeli cargo planes had landed here. The defense establishment says this is the second largest such operation in the country’s history, after the famous airlift during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. “But the Iranians have so far shown no signs of retreating. On each of the past several days, American bases in Iraq and Syria have suffered drone strikes from militias that answer to Iran. Some European intelligence agencies say that despite U.S. President Joe Biden’s explicit threat, Tehran wants to test how serious America is about supporting Israel. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq decided on Sunday to evacuate nonessential personnel.” In the north, where Israel is facing Hezbollah – which Harel describes as “behaving like a Rottweiler held back only by a flimsy rope tied to a bush that’s too small to hold it.” Harel writes that “The feeling in Israel is that the risk of a miscalculation is growing, especially as the start of the ground operation in Gaza nears.”

Yediot Ahronot reports on a Crisis of Confidence between Netanyahu and the IDF. “Beyond the disagreements over the question of timing, a crisis of confidence has developed between Netanyahu and the IDF, as well as within both the war cabinet and the broader security cabinet.” Ronen Bergman and Nahum Barnea “the government has been hard put to come to decisions on some of the central issues that are on the agenda,” they write. “The government set a war objective that IDF officials doubt is achievable. Netanyahu and Gallant promised in several different public statements to wipe Hamas off the face of Gaza. They failed to speak about the practical implications of that promise. Chief of Staff Halevi  said, “We’ll dismantle the organizational infrastructure under Sinwar.” But how is that objective to be achieved? Will that be restricted only to Gaza City, or by means of full IDF control of the entire Gaza Strip? When will the IDF and the government know that Israel has won? Military officials accuse the political leadership of failing to set clear objectives for the IDF. That might be true, but  a military that goes to war without a clear sense of how it will know when it has won—not to mention how it will disengage after the fighting is over—at the very least ought to warn that that is the situation. Over the course of this past year, the IDF found the wherewithal to warn about the crisis that the judicial coup was creating. This time, at least as far as we know, it has been silent. Furthermore, as far as we can tell, no one either in the IDF or the government has yet to hold any meeting to discuss the reality that is to reign in Gaza after Hamas has been ousted, if it is ousted. Israel is primed to go into Gaza without a clear definition of when and how it is to leave and what it is to leave in its wake.”

In Israel Hayom, Yoav Limor writes that despite the IDF having completed its preparations for a ground operation a few days ago, a decision to expand the fighting is being delayed. While a ground incursion into Gaza will be necessary to crush Hamas’s military capability and deny its governmental ability in Gaza, a ground operation has been delayed for the time being. Limor suggests that there are a few possible reasons. The first is the large number of hostages that Hamas is holding (212 as of yesterday). According to several international media reports, an international effort that is being led by Qatar is underway to release the civilian hostages as part of a humanitarian deal. A second reason is the tension in northern Israel and the concern that after investing a large number of troops in a ground operation in Gaza, it might be attacked from the north. A third reason has to do with wanting to first expand the air strikes in Gaza before starting a ground incursion. Top government and security officials say that the reason is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been hesitant and has yet to decide.

In Yediot Ahronot, Yossi Yehoshua writes that a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute that was held on the 13th and 14th days of the fighting found that the Jewish public’s confidence in the IDF remains high, and has even increased, from 85.5 per cent in June to 87 per cent. “The October 7 disaster placed a huge spotlight on the military failures that preceded it: its misapprehension of Hamas, the immense intelligence failure and the delay in the troops’ arrival at the communities where a massacre was being committed. Even so, the Israeli public seems to be aware of the heroism shown by the commanders and soldiers from the moment that they were deployed as well as of the IDF’s huge efforts to take responsibility for the disasters.”

In Yediot Ahronot, Ari Shavit argues that a crushing victory isn’t necessarily a swift victory. “Israel needs to fight fiercely, powerfully, judiciously and creatively. First and foremost, we need to set for ourselves an objective that is deemed acceptable by the international community and understandable by the Arab world: the full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and the release of all the hostages. After the barbaric pogrom that was committed in the Gaza periphery, no reasonable official in the world can question the natural justice inherent in a war objective of that kind.” But Shavit writes that the war of change needs to have five other essential sub-objectives:

1. To prevent large-scale IDF casualties in the Gaza Strip.
2. To prevent a full-scale war with Hezbollah.
3. To prevent Arab-Israeli peace from collapsing.
4. To prevent a Palestinian uprising in Judea and Samaria, the Negev and the Galilee.
5. To prevent Israel’s international legitimacy from cratering.

Shavit concludes that each one of those vital elements is essential to thwarting the malicious plan that was laid by the axis of radical Islamic evil. Israel needs to craft a war strategy that guarantees all five sub-objectives while simultaneously surprising Hamas by using war tactics that it failed to anticipate.