Many of Thursday’s front pages lead on the ongoing crisis in the Middle East amid calls for the UK to ban arms sales to Israel – following the death of aid workers, including three British ex-servicemen. 

Several domestic stories make the front pages including the UK’s Rwanda scheme and the upcoming UK general election. 

The latest from the Premier League makes the front pages, as Arsenal are back on top of the table and Liverpool and City in joint second (only one point behind the Gunners).  

‘UK sending arms to Israel breaches international law’

The Guardian leads on a letter, signed by more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired judges, who say the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel. The signatories, including three former Supreme Court justices, call for an end to weapons exports as  “a measure to prevent” genocide in Gaza. 

The front page also says Israeli PM Netanyahu is facing a ‘global outcry’ over the deaths of the aid workers who were from: the UK, Australia, Poland, Palestine and a US-Canada national. The founder of the charity that was hit by the strike accused Israel of intentionally targeting the charity vehicles. 

The i newspaper writes the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers will plunge Gaza into a new aid crisis and will lead to more deaths. More and more aid charities are halting operations in the area following the strike that killed the World Central Kitchen aid workers. It adds that as the threat of famine draws near, some Gazans have resorted to eating animal feed to survive. 

The Metro’s front page quotes PM Rishi Sunak as telling Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that the attack on aid workers that killed 7 – including three British ex-servicemen, is “intolerable.” The paper carries photos of Britons John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby, who had been working as part of World Central Kitchen’s security team.

The Times front page features a story saying the prime minister wants to give Israel more time to investigate the attack on the food charity, before deciding on whether to ban sales of arms to Israel. The paper says the PM is resisting calls from MPs to halt arming Israel – for now. 

‘1997-style Labour Party landslide’

The Times reports Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is one of 11 cabinet ministers forecast to lose his seat at the next general election in what the paper calls a ‘1997-style Tory wipe-out’. The new polling is the latest in a string of polls suggesting Labour will win the next election by a landslide.  

The i front page also covers the latest polling, suggesting Labour will win by a landslide – bigger than 1997. 

The Sun leads with the PM’s comments that raised the idea of taking the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights. In an interview with the paper, the PM says he believes controlling illegal migration was more important than membership in foreign courts after the Strasbourg judges blocked the first flights to Rwanda in 2022. 

The Daily Express says the PM’s ECHR comments are him ‘coming out fighting’ after a turbulent few weeks of dire polls and party unrest, the Prime Minister insisted everything is in place to get a plane in the air. But he warned any attempt to meddle in the plans by Strasbourg judges would lead to Britain’s exit from the court.

The Mail reports on a serving minister – amongst a number of Westminster figures – who’s been sent flirtatious WhatsApp messages and nude pictures, and there are fears that a foreign state may be involved. The story quotes an unnamed Labour Party staff member who said whoever sent the messages seemed to know a lot about them. “MPs caught up in naked honeytrap sex sting” is the headline.