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Media Summary

Five political parties call for an end to UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia

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The BBC, Telegraph and Guardian report that seven people have been injured after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in central Israel. The BBC reports that the rocket came down at 05:20 local time (03:20 GMT) on Monday in an area north of the city of Tel Aviv. This is the furthest a Palestinian rocket has reached in Israel since the 2014 conflict with militants in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is cutting short a trip to the US over the incident, has vowed to respond with force. So far no-one has said they carried out the attack. A week and a half ago, two rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv and nobody was hurt. The Israeli military responded with dozens of air strikes across Gaza, which injured four people. The Hamas militant group, which controls Gaza, and Israeli military officials later said those rockets had been launched “by mistake”.

In the Financial Times, Mehul Srivastava and Courney Weaver report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is relishing US President Donald Trump’s political largesse ahead of the country’s elections in April. The under-pressure PM, they argue, is seizing upon US gestures, while Trump seeks to draw upon Jewish support at home.

In the Guardian, Oliver Holmes and Julian Borger argue that Benjamin Netanyahu is playing the Trump card in Israel’s tight election. Even as he tries to fend off a string of corruption accusations, they write, the Prime Minister cannot be counted out. He has survived 13 years in office, and he now has a Trump card up his sleeve. Netanyahu will use that card on Monday when he arrives in Washington to bask at the White House in the warmth of his relationship with Donald Trump, whose popularity has soared in Israel as it has sagged almost everywhere else in the world.

Reuters reports that Juan Orlando Hernandez, the President of Honduras on Sunday called Jerusalem Israel’s capital, saying the Central American country would open a trade office there. However, he stopped short of announcing plans to move his embassy from Tel Aviv. “Today I have announced the first step, which is to open a trade office in Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel, and this will be an extension of our embassy in Tel Aviv,” Hernandez said in a statement issued by his government. “I’ve said that a second step will draw a lot of attacks from the enemies of Israel and the United States, but we will continue along this path,” Hernandez added.

The Guardian reports that five opposition parties in Westminster have called on the UK to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia on the fourth anniversary of the Yemen civil war, saying it has contributed to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The letter signed by leaders of the Labour party, Scottish National party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party, comes as a fragile truce negotiated in December hangs by a thread. The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is due in London this week to discuss his efforts to enforce outline agreements on a redeployment of forces in Hodeidah, the strategic Red Sea port that lies at the heart of the conflict between the Saudi-backed Yemen government and the Iran-supported Houthi rebels.

The BBC reports that US President Donald Trump has welcomed the fall of the Islamic State group’s five-year “caliphate”, but warned that the terror group remained a threat. Mr Trump’s remarks came after Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) raised victory flags in the Syrian town of Baghuz, IS’s last stronghold. He said the US would “remain vigilant until [IS] is finally defeated”. Despite losing territory in Syria and Iraq, IS remains active in countries from Nigeria to the Philippines. At its height, the group controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) across Syria and Iraq. On Saturday, the long-awaited announcement came from the SDF that it had seized that last IS territory. Western leaders hailed the announcement but emphasised that IS was still a danger. “We will remain vigilant… until it is finally defeated wherever it operates,” Trump said in a statement. French President Emmanuel Macron said “the threat remains and the fight against terrorist groups must continue”. UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the “historic milestone” but said her government remained “committed to eradicating [IS’s] poisonous ideology”.

The Times published an editorial on the fall of ISIS, arguing that the group has lost its last scrap of land in Syria, but the group remains active across the Middle East and still poses a threat to the West.

The Independent reports that an ISIS plan to direct new terror attacks in Europe has been uncovered after the group lost the last sliver of its former “caliphate” in Syria. Documents on a hard drive, which was dropped by Isis jihadis killed in a desert battle, details proposals for a “Bureau of Foreign Relations for the Department of Operations in Europe” to organise, arm and fund atrocities. In a letter, a senior militant calling himself Abu Taher al-Tajiki told local ISIS leaders he was in contact with “individuals who want to work in areas far away from the Islamic State”. Requesting permission to set up the new “bureau”, he added: “Before they carry out the operations, they will send us the targets if the connection is secure. Otherwise, they do the operation. And by the will of Allah we will meet all of their needs, for those who want it.”

In the Guardian, Martin Chulov reports on the rise and fall of the ISIS ‘caliphate’.

In the Telegraph, Josie Ensor writes that ISIS’s caliphate may be defeated but the guerrilla tactics of the group’s cells point to a deadly new threat.

In the Times, Richard Spencer writes that defeating ISIS means nothing if its ideas survive. The foreign forces who helped end the caliphate, he says, must rebuild the ‘hellscapes’ they left behind.

In the Financial Times, Nick Butler writes on the risks of Saudi Arabia’s nuclear power plans. Butler argues that the economic case for the strategy is strong, but it could have regional implications. In normal circumstances, the decision by any country to improve the efficiency of its energy supplies by investing in new technology would barely be worthy of attention. But Saudi Arabia is not a normal country and the combination of the technology chosen — civil nuclear power — and concerns over the strategy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made the Saudi move a cause of debate. The Saudi plans for nuclear development are not new. Eight years ago a target of building 16 reactors over 20 years was announced. The commitment has been regularly repeated since and updated to a new target of 17 gigawatts of capacity by 2032 or 2040

The BBC and the Independent report that Rafi Eitan, the Mossad agent who led the Israeli team that captured Nazi Adolf Eichmann, has died aged 92. The BBC reports that Eitan commanded an eight-man team who flew to Argentina in 1960 and spirited Eichmann back to Israel to stand trial. He is seen as one of the fathers of Israel’s intelligence services. Eichmann was one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s systematic extermination of six million Jewish people. He was found guilty and hanged in 1962. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Eitan “one of the heroes of Israeli intelligence” and said he was a “close personal friend”. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described him as “a born fighter who stuck to his mission and to what he knew to be right”.

The BBC reports that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said it is “possible” that President Donald Trump was sent by God to save Israel from Iran. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network during a high-profile trip to Israel, he said it was his faith that made him believe that. He also praised US efforts to “make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains”. The comments came on a Jewish holiday Purim, that commemorates the biblical rescue of the Jewish people by Queen Esther from the Persians, as the interviewer noted to Mr Pompeo.

The Times reports that five Special Forces commandos have been wounded in gun battles while on secret missions in Yemen. Members of the Special Boat Service (SBS) were shot while fighting in the Saadah area in the north of the country, according to a report. They clashed with Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, and were hit in the arms and legs. The five men, thought to be among 30 Britons operating in Yemen, are back in the UK. The report is likely to incense critics such as Andrew Mitchell, the former international development secretary, who has accused the UK of complicity in Saudi Arabia’s role in the war.

The Telegraph reports that Uber is close to buying its Middle Eastern ride-hailing rival Careem in what will be the US company’s biggest-ever acquisition. The two companies are set to announce a $3.1bn deal as early as Tuesday, consolidating Uber’s grip on one of its fastest growing markets ahead of a flotation next month expected to value it at up to $120bn (£91bn).

The Times reports that a zoo in Gaza has bowed to calls to close after four lion cubs froze to death and several animals died in air raids. The 40 inhabitants of Rafah Zoo, in the south of the Gaza strip, will be taken through Israel to wildlife sanctuaries in Jordan, the charity Four Paws said. Zoos are popular in the Middle East, and a number of private enterprises sprang up in Gaza after conditions opened up in the wake of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. Rafah Zoo was set up in 1999. The blockade of Gaza following the takeover by Hamas in 2007 put pressure on the zoo. Some animals were killed in rocket attacks during clashes with Israel and four lion cubs froze to death this winter, leading Four Paws to call for the zoo’s closure.

Kan Radio News reports that a missile was fired from Gaza early this morning which hit a home in Moshav Mishmeret in the Sharon, northeast of Tel Aviv. Seven civilians, all members of a single family, sustained moderate and light injuries from shrapnel, and are now being treated in hospital. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “There was a criminal attack here on Israel and we will respond powerfully. In light of the security incidents, I have decided to cut short my visit to the United States. In a few hours I will meet with President Trump and immediately thereafter I will return to Israel to oversee our operations from up close.” Head of the Blue/White party, Benny Gantz said: “Netanyahu has lost [Israel’s] security and the citizens of Israel have once again experienced a siren and a direct hit on a home, this time in the Sharon. The reality in which Hamas has turned Israel into its hostage is unprecedented and unbelievable. This is security bankruptcy and Netanyahu needs to pack immediately and return to Israel to deal with the grave escalation.”

In Yediot Ahronoth, Nahum Barnea writes ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with President Trump: “There are many ways of assessing the nature of the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington in the Trump era. One can cast it as a major change that broke conventions. For 70 years US administrations refused to recognise formally, de jure, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Along came Trump and changed that. For 38 years, ever since Begin passed the Golan law into legislation, US administrations refused to recognise Israeli rights to the Golan…Along came Trump and changed that. A less enthusiastic approach might posit that those were merely rhetorical gestures; their importance was more symbolic than practical.”

Maariv and Haaretz reports that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit contradicted Netanyahu, saying that he was not privy to the secret that made it possible to sell submarines to Egypt. He is the second of three people [after former NSC head Yaacov Nagel] that Netanyahu claimed knew of the sale to deny it. In response, Netanyahu issued a statement claiming that Mandeblit had merely confirmed that the sale was a sensitive security matter and claiming that the prime minister had offered to provide him with the classified details, but that Mandelblit had decided there was no need to do so.

Israel Hayom writes that the assessment is that Attorney General will not reopen the Submarine Affair. Alex Fishman in Yediot Ahronoth asks: “What is it about the submarine affair that has caused Netanyahu to produce so many lies?” On July 19, 2017 Yediot Ahronoth revealed the fact that a high-ranking Israeli official (reference to President Rivlin) who visited Germany in May 2015, asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel why a deal had been signed with Egypt. The Germans told the discomfited president that the deal had been approved by the Israeli prime minister. When the president returned to Israel, Yaalon learned that Netanyahu had lied to him.  When this story came out, the security establishment was struck with astonishment. Netanyahu said that if Israel wouldn’t have approved the purchase, the Egyptians would have bought the submarines elsewhere. It seems that even Netanyahu wasn’t persuaded by that explanation. And thus was born the conspiracy theory: that there was some terrible secret that only Netanyahu’s cousins and former National Security Council leaders were permitted to know.”

Yediot Ahronoth reports on a recorded conversation reported by Channel 13 in which Benny Gantz can be heard saying during a closed door meeting: “If (Netanyahu) had a way that I would be harmed, they would kill me, he would do it.” Netanyahu’s Likud party responded to the tapes by saying that Gantz had become paranoid and “had lost it.”

The Times of Israel reports on the report by BICOM’s Fathom Journal editor Professor Alan Johnson which examines 130 examples of antisemitism, sometimes disguised as anti-Zionism.

In domestic news, two polls – one by Channel 12 and one by Channel 13 show Blue/White leading Likud in the polls (32 seats vs 28 seats and 31 seats vs 28 seats). The Channel 12 poll found that for the first time in a month that Orly Levy-Abekasis’s Gesher Party would cross the electoral threshold and win four seats if but Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu Party would not win any seats.

Haaretz discusses the speech by the Romanian Prime Minister to the AIPAC conference on Sunday in which she said that her country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The statement was strongly contradicted by the country’s president, who opposes the move and has a final say on foreign policy issues. President Klaus Iohannis called his prime minister, Viorica Dancila, “ignorant” for making the statement, which had received strong applause from those attending the pro-Israeli conference. Also on Sunday, Honduras announced that it would open a diplomatic trade office in Jerusalem in an apparent disappointment to Israel. A senior Israeli official said in January that Honduran President Juan Hernandez had asked Netanyahu to mediate between him and the Trump administration in exchange for the Honduran embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Yediot Ahronoth, Maariv and Israel Hayom all feature a front page story about the Israeli football team beating Austria 4-2 yesterday in a qualifying game for the 2020 European Championship

Kan Radio and Haaretz report that two Hamas prisoners stabbed Prisons Service officers in Ketziot Prison last night as security prisoners were being moved from one section of the prison to another. Two officers were injured. Eleven prisoners were also injured. Two of them sustained serious injuries. The reason for the incident was the Prisons Service’s decision to jam cell phone communications.

The Times of Israel reports that a Joan Ryan MP who recently left the Labour Party over anti-Semitism warned participants at the annual AIPAC conference that her former party had changed beyond recognition in just three years, and that “things can change quickly” for the worse elsewhere too. Joan Ryan, the head of Labour Friends of Israel, was speaking soon after AIPAC’s own CEO Howard Kohr highlighted that the lobby group is under attack for its core mission – supporting a strong US-Israel relationship – including, said Kohr, by critics who are “saying you can’t even be a good American and a supporter of Israel.”