Iran’s missile bombardment of Israel, after the attacks on its Hezbollah ally in Lebanon, dominates nearly all of Wednesday’s front pages. “Middle East erupts” is the headline in the Times which has photos of a hail of rockets over the city of Ashkelon, and two men “on a rampage” in Tel Aviv, where six people were killed in a gun and knife attack.
“Iran’s new blitz at Israel” is how Metro describes the missile attack, which follows a similar bombardment in April. Images of fighting inside Lebanon illustrate the story including Beirut under Israeli air attack and an Israeli tank opening fire.
“Revenge from above” is how the Daily Mirror describes Iran’s attack. A sub-headline speaks of “fears of all-out war”.
The Guardian moves past the Iranian attack to report an Israeli vow to retaliate in turn. The conflict appears to be “spiralling out of control”, according to the paper.
Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile defences held firm, the Daily Mail notes, and now the country “vows vengeance”.
The US has threatened Iran with a “severe response” to its attack on Israel, the Daily Express reports, saying “the world watched in horror” as the missiles were launched.
Iran’s “missile barrage against Israel” also leads the Financial Times, where another headline talks of a “Lebanon exodus” as a million people seek shelter from the fighting. The paper devotes space on the front page to a story about Jay-Z and other celebrities leaving accounting firm BDO after theft claims. BDO denies the allegations, it says.
The Daily Telegraph brings home the drama in Israel to its readers with a first-person report by a journalist headlined “A rocket missed me by a minute”. “We were lucky, very lucky,” Paul Nuki writes after his experience on an Israeli motorway.
Alongside its story about “fears of new war” in the Middle East, the I paper has a feature about a woman entering her “granny pants era” and feeling “empowered” over a photo of a pair of orange knickers on a washing line.
“Hell fire” is how the Sun sums up Tuesday’s missile attack. Under the headline “Thick Knowles”, the paper also reports that DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles allegedly cast a slur on “North-East women”. The paper says he made offensive remarks in a “sleazy” chat with a young charity worker, which left her “feeling embarrassed and mortified”. Knowles, it adds, “said he had encountered hundreds of people in the course of his work and cannot be expected to remember what he has said to everyone he has met”. The paper says the BBC “declined to comment” but said it was “against all inappropriate behaviour” and had “robust processes if issues are raised”.
War in the Middle East is nowhere in sight on the front page of the Daily Star which splashes instead on an OBE for a horse that took part in the Queen’s funeral. Lord Firebrand the “funeral horsey” also got two sugar cubes.
