In today’s newsletter: As ​the polls tighten a​​round Benjamin Netanyahu, the coming months may redefine Israel’s political order without resolving its most entrenched conflicts

Good morning. On Wednesday, Israeli legislators took the first steps towards dissolving parliament and calling fresh nationwide elections. Leading leftwing Knesset member Yair Golan hailed it “the beginning of the end of the worst government in Israel’s history.” Benjamin Netanyahu has spent 20 of the last 30 years as Israel’s prime minister, the last four of which have seen him helm a far-right coalition.

Under the incumbent government, settlement building in the illegally occupied West Bank has accelerated, while many international humanitarian NGOs have been banned from the Palestinian territories. Following Hamas’s killing of 1,200 Israelis on 7 October 2023, Netanyahu has orchestrated a campaign of violence in Gaza, killing or injuring more than 10% of the population, and flattening the strip in what a UN commission has declared a genocide. Netanyahu remains on trial for three counts of corruption.

UK news | The parents of a girl critically injured in the Southport attack were allowed no more than 12 counselling sessions after the atrocity, while others described a “woeful” lack of support.

UK politics | Sadiq Khan has blocked a £50m Metropolitan police deal with the controversial US tech company Palantir, sparking a bitter row between the London mayor and Scotland Yard.

Israel | Israel has said it has deported all the foreign activists it seized from a Gaza-bound flotilla, after a global outcry over their treatment in custody.

UK news | Single-sex toilets and changing rooms in England, Wales and Scotland must exclude transgender men and women, according to a new code of practice from the equalities watchdog.

Ukraine | Ukrainian drones hit the Syzran oil refinery more than 800km inside Russia, setting it on fire, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.