The Guardian reports that UK Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has announced £2.5m funding to help salvage Yemen’s ceasefire, amid signs that the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is struggling to gain agreement even on basic confidence-building measures such as prisoner swaps. Griffiths flew to Yemen on Monday to assess the logjam, but privately UN officials admit the ceasefire might collapse within weeks unless the UN capacity improves and there is a significant change of heart on both sides. The funding will go to the UN’s civilian co-ordinator’s office that is due to provide all the civilian functions that sit alongside the military ceasefire monitoring. Its functions will include management of the main ports, de-mining operations in Hodeida city and port, and establishing a new civilian protection police.

Simon Baron-Cohen writes in the Guardian, arguing that “only empathy can break the cycle of violence in Israel-Palestine”.

Reuters reports that an Israeli tank fired into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing a Hamas militant in what the army described as retaliation for the wounding of a soldier and a brief incursion during a violent Palestinian border protest. An Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also cancelled a Qatari donation of $15 million for the impoverished enclave that had been due on Wednesday as part of international efforts to head off escalation.

The Guardian published an editorial on Tuesday evening, entitled; “The Guardian view on Israel’s democracy: killing with impunity or lying without consequence”. The editorial says those killed in Gaza were mostly “unarmed and posed no danger to anyone,” adding that Israel’s “immoral and unlawful policy … sees soldiers of its military, which is under democratic civilian control, shoot, gas, shell and kill protestors, including those who pose no credible threat”. The article likens Prime Minister Netanyahu to US President Donald Trump, writing that “the message from Mr Netanyahu is that democratic norms, those unwritten rules of toleration and restraint, are for the weak, not for the strong”. It is suggested that the late Israeli novelist Amos Oz’s words, “even unavoidable occupation is a corrupting occupation” have been ignored for too long, arguing that Israelis “must turn away from the occupation, which is debasing their society and suffocating the Palestinians”.

The BBC reports that according to a Saudi-funded charity, five foreign demining experts have been killed in an accidental explosion in Yemen. Two South Africans, one Croatian, one Bosnian and one Kosovan were in a vehicle that blew up in Marib on Sunday while carrying mines to be destroyed. A Briton was also hurt, according to the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief). The mines had allegedly been planted by the rebel Houthi movement, which is battling the Saudi-backed government.

The Telegraph reports that Roger Waters, Pink Floyd’s frontman, used his private jet to help reunite the children of a dead ISIS fighter stuck in Syria with their mother. Waters flew the woman from the Caribbean to the Iraqi border with Syria, where she crossed with a British human rights lawyer. Felicia Perkins-Ferreira, from Trinidad and Tobago, had not seen sons Ayyub, seven, and Mahmud, eleven, since they were taken by their father to Syria to live in the so-called caliphate in 2014. She has had only intermittent contact with them since. The father, Abebe Oboi Ferreira, is thought to have died fighting in Raqqa some time in 2017. They were then abandoned by his new Belgian wife on the side of the road. Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve charity, suggested the idea to Waters, a personal friend, who said he would cover all costs involved.

Reuters reports that on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia said it expects billions of dollars to be pumped into a nascent state-backed entertainment sector and is eyeing dozens of Western acts, including an exhibition NBA basketball game and a Spanish-style running of the bulls. At the launch of the 2019 entertainment calendar, Turki al-Sheikh, chairman of the General Entertainment Authority (GEA), listed dozens of events the Kingdom hopes to host this year, including auto races, magic shows and theatrical performances. “I hope national companies, banks, businessmen, artists and all sectors put their hands together. There are golden opportunities,” he told an audience that included princes, ministers, Arab celebrities and a few Muslim clerics. “This is a big door for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of jobs and for tens of billions if not hundreds of billions” of riyals, he added. Al-Sheikh said the Kingdom aims to become among the top 10 global entertainment destinations and in the top four in Asia, but provided no timeline and few concrete figures for his targets.

The Express reports that the Syrian Representative for the Syrian Arab Republic to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, has insisted the UN Security Council must do more to stop Israeli attacks on the country. Israeli missiles hit multiple Iranian targets around the Syrian capital of Damascus earlier this week in an overnight attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Jaafari added Syria may look to launch a “symmetric” strike on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport in response. Jaafari said: “Isn’t it time now for the UN Security Council to stop Israel’s repeated aggressions on the Syrian Arab Republic territories? If the UN Security Council don’t adopt measures to stop Israel’s repeated aggression in Syria, Syria will practice its legitimate right of self-defence and respond to the Israeli aggression on Damascus International Airport in the same way on Tel Aviv Airport.”

Reuters reports that Israel opened a new international airport outside its Red Sea resort of Eilat on Monday, hoping to boost winter tourism from Europeans and provide an alternative for times of conflict to its main gateway in Tel Aviv. Abutting the Jordanian border some 19 km (12 miles) north of Eilat, the Ilan and Assaf Ramon Airport cost $500 million and will replace the city’s cramped municipal airport as well as Ovda, an Israeli desert airbase that also accommodates civilian traffic.

In the Israeli media Yediot Ahronot and Maariv report on yesterday’s events along the Gaza border. Yediot Ahronot describes the Israel Air Force attacks on Hamas targets in Gaza as a “measured response to escalating violent demonstrations that were held earlier yesterday along the border fence, and in particular to sniper fire at a Paratroopers Brigade company commander — who dodged a bullet thanks to his helmet.” Haaretz and Israel Hayom focus on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to freeze the Qatari aid money as a result of the Gaza border incidents.

According to Israel Hayom, Iran is behind the escalation in the Gaza Strip, as revenge for their humiliation in Syria. According to the paper’s sources in Gaza, Al-Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani initiated the escalation through Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The armed Palestinian factions in Gaza met on Tuesday, to “discuss an appropriate response to the crimes of the Zionist occupation”.  Unlike Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad is committed primarily to its patrons in Tehran.

All the papers report on the successful test firing of the Arrow 3 missile defence system designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The paper quotes Prime Minister (and acting Defence Minister) Netanyahu who toured the Israel Aerospace Industries MLM factory that develops and manufactures the Arrow 3 missiles: “I applaud the successful test of the Arrow 3 missile. Israel has very powerful defensive and offensive capabilities, which are among the most advanced in the world.  Our enemies who seek to destroy us should know that Israel’s crushing fist will reach everyone who wishes us ill, and we will settle scores with them.”

Maariv reports that 21 people were killed in the Israel Defence Forces’s (IDF) attack in Syria according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Fifteen of the dead are reportedly not Syrians; 12 of them were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Six of the dead are members of the Syrian army and regime. According to the report, the IDF attack caused the most extensive damage to date to the IRGC’s military installations in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the large number of casualties and the extensive damage were the result of three separate waves of IAF attacks. Haaretz highlights satellite images that reveal the destruction caused by the Israeli air strikes. The images, released by Israeli satellite imaging company, ImageSat International, as part of its intelligence report, show the extent of destruction in the area around the Damascus International Airport, including destroyed J27 Radar, SA-22 TELAR (Transporter Erector Launcher and Radar), and several buildings identified as storehouses. Images also show that “The Glasshouse” was untouched, but is currently empty of personnel. The latter is reported to be a secret headquarters from which Iran is commanding military support for the Assad regime, alongside Russia. While Kan Radio notes the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafri, issued a veiled threat last night to Israel when he said, “Our missiles can reach Ben Gurion Airport.”

Israel Hayom reports that Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas vetoed signing an economic cooperation agreement with Israel and the US. The agreement was to have been signed at the Davos Summit by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, US Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara. The Palestinians, however, informed Kahlon that they would not sign the agreement as long as the US administration was party to it. Kahlon refused to accede to the Palestinian ultimatum. Senior PA officials were highly critical of the decision. “This is a decision that sends down the drain more than a year of preparations and meetings with the Israeli Finance Ministry and the American Treasury.” The paper quotes a senior Palestinian Finance Ministry source saying: “We don’t have the privilege of cancelling economic projects that are going to boost the economy and improve the life of the Palestinian public.”  A second Palestinian official pointed an accusatory finger at Saeb Erekat, who he said was behind Abbas’s decision to veto the agreement. “No one who cares about the public’s benefit and wellbeing acts this way — and that’s what Erekat and his men did. They pressured Abu Mazen [Abbas] into vetoing it. Whom have they actually punished here? The Americans? Israel? It’s the Palestinian economy and the public in the West Bank that’s going to pay. It seems that Abu Mazen and Erekat care more about political calculations than they do about the hobbled economy and the quality of Palestinians’ lives in the West Bank.”