The BBC and the Guardian report that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister has ruled out extraditing suspects in the Khashoggi murder to Turkey. The BBC reports that just over a week ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded the extradition. On Wednesday a Turkish court issued arrest warrants for former Saudi intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri and former royal adviser Saud al-Qahtani. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said: “We do not extradite our citizens. We have asked our friends in Turkey to provide us with evidence that we can use in a court of law. We have not received it in the manner that it should have been received.”

The Telegraph, Independent and the Times report that the Trump administration was urged to break close ties with the Saudi Crown Prince yesterday after claims that Jared Kushner had remained in personal contact with him despite the killing of Khashoggi. The Times reports that Mr Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law who serves as his Middle East adviser, was said to have held informal talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and advised him on how to handle the backlash over the Khashoggi killing. Mr Kushner has also reportedly urged the president to stand by the prince, 33, as an ally in the Middle East, according to The New York Times, which cited anonymous American and Saudi officials. The Telegraph reports that the new allegations that the two remained in close contact brought fresh calls from critics of Mr Trump to take a tougher stance. Marco Rubio, who sits on the Senate foreign relations committee, said the evidence of the Crown Prince’s role was clear. “It is an alliance that has limits, like any alliance would,” he said. “This is a crown prince that is a reckless individual”. He added that the relationship came with human rights obligations. “We cannot be a nation that says when our allies do something horrifying we’re going to look away. It is not in our national interest to be a defender of human rights violations,” he said.

Reuters and the Guardian report that, a Gulf Arab summit called for regional unity as Bahrain and Qatar traded barbs over the Qatari emir’s decision not to attend the gathering in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. Reuters reports that Qatar sent its minister for foreign affairs to the annual one-day summit, which was overshadowed by the economic and diplomatic boycott of Doha since mid-2017 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt over allegations Doha supports terrorism, which Qatar denies. “Qatar’s emir should have accepted the fair demands (of the boycotting states) and attended the summit,” Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said in a tweet. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened the gathering, urging fellow member states Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar to maintain a united front against Iran and terrorism. The Guardian reports that at the summit’s opening session, Kuwait, a traditional mediator in the region, urged all sides to end the damaging persistent disunity. Its emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, specifically called for an end to the media campaigns he said had planted the seeds of discord in the region. Commenting ahead of the summit, the Gulf analyst and Chatham House fellow Kristian Ulrichsen said: “The personality-driven policies pushed by the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed, have fractured Gulf politics in more ways than one”. Ulrichsen added:  “Tensions exist also between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and between Oman and the UAE, in part over Abu Dhabi’s policies in southern and eastern Yemen and toward the broader Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean littoral…Neither Kuwait nor Oman, to say nothing of Qatar, shares the hyper-hawkish approach of Riyadh or Abu Dhabi to regional affairs, and are aware that they may be next to come under pressure to conform to the Saudi-Emirati geopolitical and foreign policy straitjacket.”

Reuters reports that Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border opened fire at suspected Hezbollah activists on Saturday, the military said, the first such incident since Israel launched a crackdown on cross-border tunnels into its territory. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, however, said the Israeli soldiers shot into the air when they saw a Lebanese army patrol near the border demarcation, known as the “Blue Line”. There were no reports of casualties.

The Telegraph reports that Britain and the US have accused the Syrian regime and its Russian allies of staging a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo and blaming it on Syrian rebels. In coordinated statements, the US and UK said it believed Russia and the Assad regime had carried out the attack against civilians in Aleppo on November 24. The regime claimed at the time that the attack had injured 100 people and had been carried by rebel fighters in Idlib, the last opposition held province in Syria. The Foreign Office said the November 24 attack was “either a staged incident intended to frame the opposition, or an operation which went wrong and from which Russia and the regime sought to take advantage”. Both countries urged the regime to allow inspectors from the OPCW, the chemical weapons watchdog, to investigate the site. “We caution Russia and the regime against tampering with the suspected attack site and urge them to secure the safety of impartial, independent inspectors so that those responsible can be held accountable,” the US State Department said in a statement. The Russian embassy in Washington hit back at the claims in a Facebook post. “The Russian Defense Ministry does not rule out that the US Department of State’s allegations about the recent toxic chemicals attack in Syria’s Aleppo are aimed at distracting the public attention from the crimes of US aviation in the east of the Middle Eastern country,” it said.

Reuters reports that Yemen’s warring parties held the first direct talks in UN-led peace efforts in Sweden on Sunday to iron out a prisoner swap, one of several confidence-building measures intended to help launch a political process to end nearly four years of conflict. Since talks began on Thursday, UN officials have been shuttling between delegations from the Iranian-aligned Houthi group and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition. Mediator Martin Griffiths opened the new round due to last until 13 December by announcing a deal to release thousands of prisoners. The two sides met in a renovated castle outside Stockholm on Sunday to discuss implementation of the deal.

Reuters reports that the United States wants to continue support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s war, and will remain engaged in efforts to combat Iranian influence and Islamist militancy in the Arab state, a State Department official said on Sunday. “There are pressures in our system … to either withdraw from the conflict or discontinue our support of the coalition, which we are strongly opposed to on the administration side,” said Timothy Lenderking, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Arabian Gulf Affairs. “We do believe that the support for the coalition is necessary. It sends a wrong message if we discontinue our support,” he told a security forum in the United Arab Emirates.

All the Israeli media report the shooting attack near Ofra in the West Bank last night which injured seven people, including a pregnant women in critical condition whose baby was delivered last night in hospital. Kan Radio reports that security forces are continuing the manhunt for the attacker. Palestinian sources reported that the IDF was operating in the villages of Silwad and Ein Yabrud, which are located near Ofra.

Maariv reports on the request by the IDF Spokesman for Lebanese residents near the border to evacuate before the IDF destroys more tunnels. Amos Harel in Haaretz argues that: “Along with the location and destruction of the tunnels, Israel also wants to take advantage of the discovery and the publicity for two goals: Leveraging it for the public relations war against Hezbollah in the international arena, and speeding up the construction of the new wall at disputed points along the border, in the area of Manara and Misgav Am in the east, and east of Rosh Hanikra in the west.” He adds that: “The IDF has prepared an intelligence file on every tunnel, which includes data “incriminating” Hezbollah for violating the UN resolution. Israel will try to use the violations by Hezbollah as justification for continuing the work on building the wall, which so far have been conducted at a slow pace in disputed areas, partly out of a fear of a harsh response by Hezbollah.”

Kan Radio reports that a Persian Gulf state sought to purchase Hermes 450-class unmanned aerial vehicles from Israel, but the request was denied. According to international reports, the Hermes 450 is capable of carrying munitions and attacking ground targets. The Persian Gulf country decided to buy UAVs from China because Israel denied the request. The Defence Ministry issued a statement saying that it did not comment on defence export deals.

Hadashot reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu is working to regulate relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The  goal is to bring about a breakthrough and make the relations between  the two countries official before elections in 2019. Mossad Chief, Yossi Cohen, is aiding with the process. According to a senior political source, Israel is in contact  with Arab states to figure out interests vis-a-vis Iran.

Haaretz reports that a video of the fatal shooting of a Palestinian man shows that he was shot in the back and contradicts the Israeli military’s claim that the incident occurred during violent clashes. The army has opened an investigation into the shooting, which occurred on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

Maariv reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday called Haifa Mayor Einat Kalisch Rotem and asked her to cancel the appointment of Hadash representative Raja Zaatara, to the paid position of deputy mayor because he is a “Hezbollah and Hamas supporter.” Zaatara was elected by the Haifa Front (Hadash) faction. According to the coalition agreements, he is supposed to serve as deputy mayor during the second half of the term, after replacing Rabbi Dov Hayun of Meretz. Yesterday, Zaatara told media yesterday: “ISIS committed ethnic cleansing in Syria, and the Zionist movement committed ethnic cleansing in 1948” adding ,“I’m not a member of Hamas or Hezbollah, but rather of the Israeli Communist Party and Hadash, which advocate peace, equality and brotherhood. Netanyahu and his corrupt government are trying to sway public opinion. The real danger to the Jewish people is not in the Haifa municipality, but on 10 Balfour Street in Jerusalem. By the time I am deputy mayor, most likely Netanyahu and Deri will be in jail.” Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Ben-Dror Yemini argues that: “This is no way to build coexistence. This is not how to advance equality. This is not how to encourage cooperation. Because anyone who thinks that ISIS learned from Zionism, wants to promote hatred, not equality” adding, “When the left wing does not speak out against him clearly and unequivocally, it gives a seal of approval to a belligerent man who supports terrorism.”

Maariv reports that the Prime Minister’s Office said coalition leaders had decided to pass the bill that seeks to change the president’s authorities, known as the “Gideon Saar bill,” in a preliminary reading and to continue the debate on it afterwards. The goal of the bill, which is an amendment to a law and which was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, is to obligate the president to assign the task of forming the government only to a party leader, and not to an ordinary MK, which is what the law allows today. The bill came about after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to believe that former minister Gideon Saar and President Reuven Rivlin were planning for the president to assign the task of forming the government to Saar, and not to Netanyahu, who heads the Likud, if he were to be indicted. Meretz Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg said about the “Gideon Saar bill”: “Netanyahu apparently envisions himself running the country by phone wearing an orange jumpsuit. The essence of the “Gideon Saar bill” is another attempt by Netanyahu to hold on to power after he is indicted. Before they also pass a bill that lets Netanyahu run the country from jail, we have to send this coalition home and stop this legislation.”

Yediot Ahronot and Maariv report on the death of singer Yigal Bashan. PM Netanyahu said that “He was an inseparable part of the soundtrack of Israeli music. His voice and songs will accompany us for many more years to come.” President Reuven Rivlin called Bashan “the man with the warm voice who made us all miss something we could not even name… the undisputed leader of the Hopa Hey band that was a vital part of the childhood of so many of us.”