The BBC, the Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Financial Times report that US President Donald Trump has overturned decades of US policy by saying it is time to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967. The BBC reports that, in a tweet, Trump declared that the plateau was of “critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability”. Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally. Syria, which has sought to regain the region, has so far made no comments. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has warned about the “military entrenchment” of Iran in Syria and has ordered air strikes in an attempt to thwart it – tweeted his thanks to Trump. “At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognises Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” he wrote.

Reuters reports that Damascus has condemned US President Trump’s statement that it is time to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, vowing Syria would recover the area using “all available means”. Syrian state news agency cited a foreign ministry source on Friday saying Trump’s statement showed “the blind bias of the US” towards Israel. It did not change “the reality that the Golan was and will remain Syrian, Arab. The Syrian nation is more determined to liberate this precious piece of Syrian national land through all available means,” the source said, adding that Trump’s statement was “irresponsible” and showed “contempt” for international law. Iran said the statement was illegal and unacceptable, and Russia said a change in the status of the Golan Heights would be a direct violation of UN resolutions.

The Guardian reports that Hamas appears to have forcibly suppressed a rare uptick in public dissent in Gaza, beating and arresting scores of people over the past week who have been demonstrating against price rises and dire living conditions across the strip. A group of activists and civil society figures calling itself “We want to live” had planned a general strike on Thursday, but after attacks by riot police since last week it was not clear whether the strike would go ahead. Hamas has backed a year-long protest movement along the frontier with Israel but has not shown similar approval for internal criticism. Over several days during the past week, Palestinians have gathered in multiple locations to rally. They have made clear their demands are economic and not an attempt to overthrow their leaders. Videos posted online showed officers clubbing unarmed protesters and firing live rounds into the air. Amnesty International said hundreds of people, including journalists attempting to document the rallies, had been subjected to arbitrary arrest and torture.

The BBC, Guardian and the Times report that almost 100 people are thought to have died after a ferry sank in the Tigris River, in Iraq’s city of Mosul. The BBC reports that most of the victims were women and children, the interior ministry said. It is thought nearly 200 people were on board. The ferry was heading towards a tourist island as part of new year celebrations. Mosul’s civil defence agency reportedly said most on board could not swim. At least 19 children and 61 women were among the 94 people believed to have died, and 55 people were rescued.

The Independent reports that aid agencies are warning that those fleeing ISIS’s last strip of territory are “in the worst condition since the crisis began,” following reports that 12 died after arriving at al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria. Two thousand women and children arrived at the camp overnight into Wednesday after escaping fighting in Baghouz, with 60 needing immediate hospitalisation and another 12 deaths recorded, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which runs the camp, said in a statement on Thursday. “These women and children are in the worst condition we have seen since the crisis first began. Many have been caught up in the fighting and dozens have been burnt or badly injured by shrapnel,” Wendy Taeuber, IRC’s Iraq and northeast Syria country director said. It is unclear how many children were among the 12 who died. Kurdish authorities and aid agencies are struggling to cope with the huge numbers of those who have been displaced, with more than 60,000 arriving at the camp since fighting began. Some 90 per cent of the arrivals have been women and children. A victory over the last strip of ISIS territory appears imminent, with only the most battle-hardened fighters left in Baghouz, believed to be hiding out in underground tunnels.

In the Evening Standard, Patrick Cockburn writes that as the ISIS loses its last stronghold at Baghouz in eastern Syria, it retains the ability to spread terror because memories of its past atrocities are still fresh.

The Telegraph reports that a German documentary maker who was kidnapped in Syria when she was seven months pregnant and gave birth to a son while being held hostage, has spoken out about her ordeal for the first time. “I was fully aware that if it came to it they would cut my head off in front of a camera,” Janina Findeisen told Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. In her first interview since she was freed, Findeisen told how she had travelled to Syria without a mobile phone or tracker in October 2015 in order to interview a former school friend who had joined the jihadist al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

All the Israeli media lead with US President Donald Trump’s announcement that it was time for the US to “fully recognise” Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Yediot Ahronoth reports that Trump’s tweet is of great value, assuming it will soon become official US legal policy in the form of an official statement by the State Department, the White House or the Justice Department. The paper argues that it sends a very important message to Iran, Russia and Syria: the US is on Israel’s side, it will help it defend its northern border, and it will not pressure Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights in the future. However, the paper notes that Trump’s declaration was unlikely to influence other countries to follow suit.

Maariv cites European sources who express concern that the unilateral declaration was liable to lead to instability in the region and said that it could cause a deterioration on the Israeli-Syrian border. A senior member of the Syrian opposition told Maariv that he and his organisation were opposed to the annexation of the Golan by Israel. The senior source revealed that: “Talks are currently being held between all opposition members in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, the US and Europe, with the aim of issuing a statement that opposes the annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights by Israel.”

Kan Radio reports that Russia objected to the US course of action. Russian diplomatic sources said that the way to change the agreements pertaining to the Golan Heights was by means of the UN Security Council. They said that the status of the Golan Heights cannot be altered by tweets.  Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit rejected the US president’s statement and said that international law and UN Security Council resolutions stipulated that the Golan Heights was occupied territory.

Haaretz details how: “Netanyahu conducted advanced negotiations with the Syrians about an Israeli withdrawal from territories in the Golan Heights in return for the distancing of Iran and Hezbollah from them. For 20 years, nearly all Israeli governments held secret talks with Damascus focused on formulating a peace agreement that would include a territorial compromise. The last and least known round of these talks, under the baton of Netanyahu’s government, was abruptly terminated in March 2011 in the shadow of the outbreak of the civil war. During the years of the slaughter, there was a gradual but definite change in direction in Israel’s position: The age of ‘the Syrian option’ ended and it became time to demand recognition of the existing de facto sovereignty.”

Also in Haaretz, Amos Harel quotes Asaf Orion, a member of the Institute for National Security Studies and a former chief of the General Staff’s strategy team, who said the decision: “Diverges entirely from the traditional approach of the American foreign policy, which determines that annexed territories will not be recognised without official agreements. This is the stance the United States took regarding border disputes in Ukraine, Crimea, Cyprus and other places.” According to Orion: “Jerusalem is welcoming this move and of course it rings well to Israeli ears. But in the international arena, the security reasoning Trump used is less acceptable. There they discuss legitimacy, not security.”

Commenting in Yediot Ahronoth, Alon Pinkas argues that Trump’s statement was a “recognition of reality,” but questioned how meaningful this move was, given the UN resolutions rejecting Israeli annexation of the Golan. “Whoever joins forces with Trump, a very unpopular person in the eyes of the world, when he tries to dismantle international law, render the UN charter meaningless and contradict Security Council resolutions – may find himself one day at the slightly less pleasant end of this process,” cautions Pinkas, concluding: “What good does the declaration do besides turning a dormant issue that is of no importance on the global agenda into a subject for discussion and condemnation?”

Maariv writes that security establishment officials have said there is a high potential for escalation in the West Bank. Kan Radio reports this morning that Palestinians threw a firebomb at an Israeli vehicle on the highway between Itamar and Elon Moreh in the West Bank.

In domestic news, an  Israel Hayom poll predicts that the Blue/White party will win 30 seats, Likud 26, 9 for Labour, 7 for the United Right, 6 seats each for United Torah Judaism, Zehut and Meretz. A Maariv–Jerusalem Post poll predicts that the Blue/White party will win 30 seats, Likud 27, Hadash-Taal and Labour Party 8 each, United Torah Judaism 7 and the New Right Party, Jewish Home and Shas 6 each.

Kan Radio reports that the Supreme Court published its reasons for disqualifying Michael Ben-Ari of Jewish Power from running for the Knesset while allowing the candidacy of Ofer Cassif of Hadash. The judges wrote that they had adopted the attorney general’s position that incitement to racism in Ben-Ari’s actions and statements constituted a central aim of his philosophy.