Israeli Press
Israel's Monday papers open on the Board of Peace and Likud's primaries
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Israel's press began the week on two tracks: a peace board contradicting the prime minister about Gaza, and a governing party counting its own votes. Here is how each outlet plays it.
Ynet led its diplomatic file with Itamar Eichner's report that Board of Peace officials rejected Netanyahu's declaration and said Israel is in fact implementing the fifteen points. "We look at actual actions, less at words and declarations," they told the site.
Directly beneath it, Ynet's military correspondent Elisha Ben Kimon reported the army's changed posture in Gaza, where officers say they now wait for approval from above before firing, and a second Ben Kimon story on Israel Katz's order to prepare the occupation of another refugee camp, which the general staff is not advancing.
The same front carried photographs from Nablus market of special-unit soldiers with weapons drawn among the stalls, and the removal of the settler Tal Yinon Dardik from the occupied West Bank after his house arrest collapsed in court.
Haaretz gave its live file to Lebanon, reporting that talks are unlikely to resume before the end of summer, and quoted Nikolay Mladenov saying Israeli withdrawal follows verified decommissioning of weapons. Its West Bank reporting, by Rawan Suleiman and Matan Golan, covered the army's closure of Taybeh to Israelis and settlers mobilising to keep Mughayyir's farmers off their land.
Maariv gave the morning to the campaign. Amir Ohana admitted the coalition's electoral position is difficult, Aliza Bloch joined the Erdan-Edelstein list, and a former chief executive of the AM:PM chain joined Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar. The paper's Sunday poll put Netanyahu ahead of Eisenkot on the premiership question for the first time in weeks.
Deeper in Maariv, the settlements minister Orit Strook demanded a hard brake on the Gaza roadmap, the cabinet moved to approve a billion shekels in emergency procurement and to extend the home-front special status to 8 September, and the ultra-Orthodox parties weighed running separately after their ultimatum expired.
Walla ran the region and the crime pages: Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei saying Tehran sees no reason to fear the new Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani security pact, and a third grenade in a night found in northern Tel Aviv.
Ynet also reported that in the Lebanon talks Israel raised the transfer of Jewish remains from Lebanese cemeteries as part of a civilian exchange.
Across all of them the pattern of the day holds: the decisions being reported are Israeli, and the ground they are decided on is Palestinian.
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