The Independent reports that more than 18,000 civil servants including police officers, academics and members of the armed forces in Turkey are to be dismissed as President Erdogan ends the state of emergency that had been in place for around two years. The decree was issued on Sunday, shortly after Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election last month as  executive president.

The FT report on concerns from analysts and foreign investors after Turkish President Erdogan appointed his own son-in-law to head Turkey’s powerful new Treasury and Finance Ministry as he unveiled a cabinet composed of a mix of loyalists, technocrats and business figures drawn from the private sector. The Turkish lira plummeted on the news of his appointment, losing as much as 3.8 per cent of its value to trade at 4.7488 per dollar.

The Guardian and the Daily Mail report that Iran has arrested a number of people over videos that were posted on Instagram, including a young woman who filmed herself dancing to music. According to activists, the young women is called Maedeh Hojabri, who has since appeared on a state television programme with the other detainees, in which she and others made what activists say were forced confessions, a tactic often used by Iranian authorities.

The Times and the Daily Mail feature a piece on the airstrike on the T-4 military air-base in eastern Syria used by Iranian drone operators and air-defence systems. The papers notes that Syria blamed the attack on Israel, with the Daily Mail reporting that Syrian air defences struck an Israeli jet. Israel has reportedly demanded from Russia guarantees that Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned forces will be kept away from the border. However, it is not clear whether Russia has accepted that or been able to force agreement from either Iran or the Syrian regime.

BBC News reports on Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s visit to a children’s hospital near Washington DC in her superhero costume. Gadot, who is filming the Wonder Woman sequel in the area, was dubbed “a true Wonder Woman” by one staff member. She joins the likes of Robert Downey Jr and Johnny Depp who made hospital visits in costume.

The Times reports on an Iranian government official being arrested and deported 10 months after being invited back to the country to help solve the water crisis. Kaveh Madani served as deputy head of Iran’s Environment Ministry. Four months into Madani’s job, a war on environmentalists was brewing. Campaigners and academics were seized on espionage charges and Madani was detained. He resigned after six months, the final straw being the leaking of a video of him dancing with an unveiled woman at a party in America.

The Independent features a piece by Patrick Cockburn on ISIS preparing to defend Hajin, its last stronghold in eastern Syria. The report claims that several hundred suicide bombers and up to 4,000 fighters belonging to the terrorist groups are ready to fight multiple anti-ISIS forces which are closing in on the town. A resident of the town told Cockburn that the struggle for Hajin might take longer than the four-month siege of Raqqa, the de facto ISIS capital in Syria which was captured by the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-Arab group, in October.

In the Israel media, Yediot Ahronot reports that President Reuven Rivlin awarded 12 Shin Bet agents medals for excellence.  The paper says that their efforts meant “millions of Israelis can sleep peacefully at night”.  Their identities cannot be revealed but the paper profiles some of the winners.This includes a mother of three with a doctorate who is a senior figure in the operations division that prevented numerous terrorist attacks. Another agent named “A” also received an award for conducting counter-terror operations exposing espionage against Israel, which was considered “creative, sophisticated and ground-breaking”.

Haaretz reports on the closure of the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Gaza. Yediot Ahronot includes explanations of the government rationale, but also includes criticism from the opposition. Chairman of the Zionist Union Avi Gabbay declared Prime Minister Netanyahu “impotent” in the face of the flying firebombs. “Netanyahu is no longer Mr. Security, he’s possibly Mr. Microphone. The south is burning, and Netanyahu is ducking his responsibility,” he said. Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid is quoted saying: “If Netanyahu were in the opposition today, he would be standing on the Gaza border and screaming that this is not the way you conduct a security policy.”

Yediot Ahronot refers to the decision to close the border crossing as an “own goal”. The paper claims that “no government in the world would permit a terror organisation or its proxies to burn a large area of a moderate size city without responding. Israel’s power of deterrence is eroding. Hamas’s power is increasing. How long can this go on“. The paper further argues that the closing gives “Hamas more propaganda weapons”. As early as yesterday, immediately after the Israeli announcement, Hamas issued a statement about “the world’s silence toward Israel’s war crimes”. Maariv says “the understanding in the security establishment is that at this rate, there is no solution to the kites at present and Hamas has no reason to put an end to them”.

Maariv leads on a possible confrontation between “Minister Lieberman v the Security Establishment” over a difference of approach to Gaza. Defence Minister Lieberman has demanded painful, broad action against Hamas and its senior officials, even at the cost of escalating the situation and even at the price of descending into an all-out confrontation. In contrast the IDF top brass and the security establishment prefer working to restore the understandings and previous rules of the game that were set after Operation Protective Edge without need for another clash. The paper says that the Prime Minister will likely tip the balance: “Netanyahu will have to choose between his tendency to cool down the southern front and not strive to engage, in order to complete the far more difficult and challenging work in the north.”

Kan radio news reports on a shooting near the settlement of Bet El in Binyamin last night. No one was reported injured. Troops searching the area have found several bullets.

Israel Hayom reflects on the strike on the T-4 air base in Syria two nights ago that foreign media attributed to Israel: “There was nothing routine about this strike, and not only because any strike, certainly not one that is, again, so close to the Russian troops deployed in Syria — has the potential to cause an explosion, but mainly because of the timing. Israel knowingly chose to insist on its red lines during a very significant week politically: three days before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with President Putin, and one week before the summit that Putin will hold in Helsinki with President Trump… we can assume that the strike attributed to Israel was a clear message to both leaders … the point Israel was trying to make was that it has no intention of compromising in any way on the matter of the Iranian presence in Syria, and if the world powers don’t do something about it, Israel will, and it will do so on its own.”

Kan radio news reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to be questioned today for the tenth time over his corruption cases. This round of questioning will focus on the Bezeq affair, in which he is suspected of having taken action to give regulatory benefits to the telecommunications company in return for favourable coverage on the website Walla. Bezeq’s controlling shareholder, Shaul Elovitch, will be questioned simultaneously.