Israeli Press
Israel's Wednesday papers count the primary's wreckage and a Gaza café strike
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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Two days after Likud chose its list, the Israeli press on Wednesday was still counting the damage inside the party — and reporting a strike on a café in Gaza's port that Palestinian medics say killed six people.
Maariv ran the aftermath across its diplomacy and breaking desks. One report described a plan to bring Netanyahu down from inside the party, quoting the intention to draw off the disappointed and change the leadership. Another described a quiet alliance between two senior Likud figures now planning their revenge on him.
The paper reported that Avi Dichter appears to have fallen out of realistic range and that Likud's senior ranks are looking for a way to place him anyway; that the party's only remaining security figure is probably out; and that Nir Barkat, the economy minister, invested millions in his campaign and was shaken by the result.
Tali Gotliv, pushed down the list, settled accounts with Netanyahu in the paper's pages and said she was not alone.
Gadi Eisenkot used the moment to recruit. Responding to the primary results, the Yashar leader told Likud's discarded, "You have a home." Avigdor Liberman also announced an addition, with Yonatan Yaakobovich joining Yisrael Beiteinu.
Ynet reported that Ofer Winter's billboards are up ahead of a party launch of his own, and published a survey feature asking what the Israeli public actually thinks about the conflict. The site also carried the death of Professor Shaul Mishal, one of Israel's foremost scholars of Hamas.
The strike in the port#
Ynet English reported that the Israeli military struck what it called Hamas commanders in the Shati area near Gaza City's port, saying they were planning attacks on troops in the Strip.
Palestinian reports carried in the same item say the target was a café, that six people were killed including a child, and that ten were wounded.
The strike came a day after Jared Kushner met Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to push the stalled Gaza plan, and Hamas said afterwards through spokesman Hazem Qassem that it remains committed to the ceasefire roadmap.
Two Palestinians in Wednesday's Haaretz#
Haaretz published Amira Hass on Sultan Jabarin, the Palestinian detainee beaten during a raid on his village south of Bethlehem and hospitalised, whose whereabouts the army refused to disclose for three days until two High Court petitions were filed.
The same paper's election desk profiled the hundreds of thousands of Israelis voting for the first time in October — a cohort that grew up through the pandemic and then through 7 October and the wars, and that learns politics from social feeds.
The Jerusalem Post carried two West Bank reports Palestinians should read together: that Israel Katz never coordinated his settler-policing transfer with the army, and that B'Tselem says 47 families in the northern Jordan Valley face expulsion after their water was cut. Mike Huckabee, the American ambassador, again urged Israel to act on settler terrorism.
Beyond the Green Line#
The Syrian airbase Israel struck stayed on every front page. Israel told Washington that Turkey was about to deploy troops there, Haaretz reported; Maariv said Turkey weighed a response and ran a scenario piece on a direct Israeli-Turkish clash.
Haaretz also carried a Financial Times report that Iran is considering strikes on European targets if its war with the United States escalates, alongside CNN's finding that most shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has ignored Tehran's warnings and is sailing the Omani lane.
Walla reported from Washington on a protest installation outside Israel's embassy that depicted Netanyahu dancing on blood.
