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In your briefing today:

• Trump hails “historic dawn” in Middle East - but path ahead for Gaza is long

• Swinney promises new walk-in GP services

• Scottish civil servants upset at return-to-office demands

• Who are the new front-runners for the Rangers job?

📣 Celebrations in Israel and Gaza have marked a hostage and prisoner swap being seen as another milestone in attempts to bring peace to the region. Hamas returned all living Israeli hostages yesterday, while Israel freed almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. (BBC)

In a whirlwind day of developments in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump arrived in Israel and was later hailed at the Israeli parliament. In a speech to the Knesset, Trump praised the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” and an end to the “long and painful nightmare” of the war in Gaza. (Guardian)

Trump then flew on to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for a summit with 20 other global leaders, where the guarantors of the peace agreement - the US, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt - signed a treaty on their roles and the path to Palestinian self-rule. (BBC)

• Why did Hamas agree? What happens next? And what was Britain’s role? See below ⬇️

• The hostages may be free, but the path to long-term peace is likely to be complex, with much to be worked out in the weeks ahead. (AP)

• Deadly clashes between Hamas and a clan have broken out in Gaza since the signing of the peace deal, with at least 27 people being killed. (Independent)

📣 First Minister John Swinney has promised a national network of walk-in GP services to deliver a million more appointments and end the “8am rush for appointments”.

Swinney made the promise during his keynote speech at the SNP’s annual conference in Aberdeen, where it drew a standing ovation from delegates, although doctors warned recruitment problems could hold back the £30 million initiative. (BBC) (Scotsman)

• Chris Mason: SNP are proof that things change quickly in politics (BBC)

• John Swinney praised as “absolutely fabulous” legal advice offered by a lawyer who told the conference it would be “legally unreasonable” for the UK government to refuse a second independence referendum if the SNP secured at least 65 seats in May. But experts in constitutional law have rubbished the comments by Ann Faulds, a planning lawyer who has represented Donald Trump’s businesses. (The Times £)

• Paul Hutcheon: “Swinney’s speech was another reminder that history is littered with grandiose SNP conference announcements that come to nothing.“ (Daily Record)

• Connor Gillies: With the unionist vote split, the SNP won’t need to do much to stay in power (Sky News)

📣 Scottish Government civil servants are unhappy over demands they return to the office for 40% of their working week from this month, or face disciplinary action.

Internal messages, obtained by The Herald through a Freedom of Information request, show junior civil servants “fuming” over an equality impact assessment which they say was designed to justify changes to hybrid working.

The messages show staff raising objections over caring responsibilities, as well as saying there was “no evidence” office working would allow managers to spot and tackle inappropriate behaviours or cure “technostress” - the overuse of technology.

“Have genuinely never felt so disrespected by an employer than I have since this ‘policy’ was announced,” said one. (The Herald (£) has the exclusive)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Shetland could be without internet access for up to three weeks after a subsea cable was damaged. The island has been without broadband since October 3, when a connection went down during Storm Amy. (The Scotsman)

• An internet outage across Shetland and Orkney earlier in the year was caused by a scallop dredger fishing “dark” without its trackers switched on. (The Shetland Times has the exclusive)

📣 Football ultra violence is spreading among lower league football matches in Scotland, a police union chief has warned. The warning came after shocking scenes earlier this month at Raith Rovers’ game against Ross County. (Daily Record)

📣 Scotland faces an obesity crisis, experts are warning - with more than half the population overweight by 2040 unless things change. (Mail)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 A UK government insulation scheme has been botched “on a vast scale” according to the National Audit Office, with 98% of the homes given external wall insulation facing damp and mould problems if left unaddressed, and concerns about suspected fraud. (BBC) (Read the report)

📣 Vodafone suffered a major outage yesterday, with the cause unclear. (Guardian)

📣 Parents in a London borough have been banned from their children’s sports days after a wave of bad behaviour - including cutting across tracks during races and abusing staff and children. (LBC)

📣 The US and China have rolled out “tit-for-tat” port fees as their trade war continues to escalate. (Reuters)

📣 Got a cold? Suck on a peppermint, say scientists - they’ll make you more alert. (Sky News)

SPORT

⚽️ Now Steven Gerrard doesn’t want the job, who’s going to take on managing Rangers? The two leading candidates appear to be former Sheffield Wednesday manager Danny Rohl - young, credited with an big turnaround in Yorkshire - and Kevin Muscat - a former Rangers player, more experienced, currently leading Chinese Super League side Shanghai Port. Rohl is thought to be the favourite. (Daily Record)

• Former Scotland international Barry Bannan says Rohl would make an immediate impact at Rangers. (The Sun)

⚽️ After that anxiety-inducing 2-1 win over Belarus, Scotland has a guaranteed play-off place for World Cup qualification. But we should hope not to need it: it could come down to a decider at Hampden on November 18. (The Scotsman)

IDEAS
Peace in the Middle East: Why did Hamas agree? What happens next? And what was Britain’s role?

🗣️What got Hamas to agree to a deal it didn’t like? Pressure from its sometime allies, according to The Wall Street Journal. “When Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya first saw President Trump’s plan for peace in Gaza, which demanded that his group disarm with few concrete steps to ensure Israel would end the war, his immediate reaction was no.

“But two days later, Hamas came back to Arab mediators with a yes. The deal hadn’t changed. The pressure on Hamas had.”

The points of leverage: Egypt and Qatar told Hamas it was the last chance to end the war. “They pressed Hamas to understand that holding the hostages was becoming a strategic liability, giving Israel a source of legitimacy to keep fighting,” reports the WSJ.

“The next day, joined by Turkey, they warned him that if Hamas didn’t approve the plan it would be stripped of all political and diplomatic cover; Qatar and Turkey would no longer host the group’s political leadership, and Egypt would stop pressing for Hamas to have a say in Gaza’s postwar governance, the officials said.” (🎁WSJ - gift link)

🗣️What happens next in Gaza? There might be relief that Israel has ended its two-year military initiative in the enclave, but “many felt there was little to celebrate” according to the New York Times.

Gaza is in ruins, “its cities reduced to rubble, tens of thousands dead and the health system devastated. Despair and hopelessness are pervasive and many no longer see a future.”

The focus, early on, is on the basics: 17 bakeries are now open across the territory, while 600 trucks a day will enter Gaza, bringing much-needed supplies. But Hamas has also started to reassert itself on the streets. (🎁 New York Times - gift link)

🗣️ What role did the UK play in the peace negotiations? The Times finds that it depends on who you ask. On Sunday, a graceless intervention by Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, suggested education secretary Bridget Phillipson had been wrong to suggest the UK had played a “key role” in shaping the deal.

“I assure you she’s delusional,” he said. “She can thank Donald Trump any time just to set the record straight.”

In the Times’ delightful turn of phrase, that sparked “some intensive discussions through diplomatic backchannels'“. The upshot of those was a Tweet from Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, early yesterday morning, expressing how he wanted to “acknowledge the vital role of the United Kingdom in assisting and coordinating efforts that have led us to this historic day in Israel.”

In particular, he singled out Jonathan Powell for praise - the arch Blairite, who played an important role in the Northern Ireland peace process and who is now at the heart of Starmer’s government.

Powell’s old boss, Blair himself, will have some form of role in the reconstruction of Gaza, although how Trump’s proposed “board of peace” - on which it was mooted Blair would sit - would work is, for the moment, far from clear. But it appears clear that Britain will continue to - quite literally - have a seat at the table. The Independent speculates at the reasons why - it may be, it suggests, that Trump simply needs Britain to stay on its feet to justify his own policies. (The Times £)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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