The Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Guardian and The Telegraph report on the US response to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Times reports that President Trump has said the US will produce an official account within two days of who killed Khashoggi after splits in Washington about how to respond to his death. It has been reported that the CIA has concluded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered his death. The White House tried to play down the report. The State Department said that the government — as opposed to the CIA — had not yet made an assessment. “Recent reports indicating that the US government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” it said. “There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr Khashoggi.” President Trump, who said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia was a “truly spectacular ally”, later said the report he was about to receive on the Khashoggi murder would include “who did it”. “We’ll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday,” he said. Yesterday he said he did not wish to hear a recording purported to be of Khashoggi being tortured and killed. “We have the tape. I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape,” he told Fox News. Asked why, he said: “Because it’s a suffering tape.” He added: “It’s a terrible tape. I’ve been fully briefed on it.” Amid the media reports the CIA had concluded responsibility for the killing lay with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. The Financial Times reports that President Trump said he had seen no evidence that the killing had been ordered by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, opening up the prospect of a new rift with his intelligence services. Prince Mohammed had told him as many as five times — including as recently as a few days ago — that he had not been involved, the president said, and he suggested there was no recourse to finding out whether the crown prince was lying. The Telegraph via Rob Crilly reports that, Khashoggi’s killers may have used diplomatic immunity to smuggle his body out of the country in their luggage, according to Turkey’s defence minister. Khashoggi’s body has still not been found more than six weeks after he was killed.

The BBC, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian and Reuters report on Israel’s fractured coalition government. The Financial Times reports that Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking support from his cabinet and a vital coalition ally to keep his fracturing government together on Sunday, as he warned that early elections would put national security at risk. Bartering with remaining coalition partners to rescue his premiership, Mr Netanyahu warned: “At this sensitive time, vis-à-vis security, it would be both unnecessary and incorrect to go to elections…This evening I will meet with finance minister Moshe Kahlon in an attempt to prevent the government from being toppled,” he added in brief remarks before a cabinet meeting. Following the meeting, the PM spoke from the military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where he took over the defence portfolio himself. He said Israel faced serious security risks and that he was the best prepared to navigate it through those challenges. “At a time like this, you don’t go to elections — it is not responsible,” he said. Regarding the security threats, he said: “I won’t say tonight when we will act and how we will act — I have a clear program. I know what to do, when to do it and we will do it.” He defended his actions in Gaza, saying official secrecy prevented him from sharing the reasons behind his decisions.

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC online, The Times, Sky News, the Telegraph and Reuters report on UK Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt’s visit to Iran. The Telegraph reports Hunt has warned Iran against using innocent dual-national Britons as political prisoners as he prepared to visit the country for the first time. The Foreign Secretary called on its hard-line Islamic regime to release people including charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, currently jailed on what are widely regarded as trumped-up spying charges. Hunt, the first Western foreign minister to visit Iran since the US pulled out of a nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Tehran, also called for its leaders to cease “destabilising activity”. Mr Hunt said that the Iran nuclear deal, “remains a vital component of stability in the Middle East by eliminating the threat of a nuclearised Iran…But we also need to see an end to destabilising activity by Iran in the rest of the region if we are going to tackle the root causes of the challenges the region faces.” The Foreign Secretary is also due to discuss the war in Yemen during his trip, which will include talks with his counterpart, Mohammad Zarif.

Reuters reports that Iran is still hopeful that its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers can be saved despite the withdrawal of the United States, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday. “There are some ambiguities on implementation of the EU’s mechanism to protect trade with Iran from America’s sanctions … But we remain hopeful that the Europeans can save the deal,” Bahram Qasemi told a news conference broadcast live on state TV. “We expect the EU to implement the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) as soon as possible,” Qasemi said. “Iran adheres to its commitments as long as other signatories honour theirs.”

The BBC and the Guardian report on a proposed halt to drone and missile strikes in Yemen. The BBC reports that Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they are halting drone and missile strikes on the Saudi-led military coalition after a request from the United Nations. The move comes after the coalition ordered a halt in its offensive on the key Yemeni port of Hudaydah. The UN is attempting to revive talks to end a three-year war which has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The Guardian reports that a senior Houthi rebel, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Higher Revolutionary Committee and an influential political figure, called for rebels to stop firing rockets and using attack drones in the conflict in Yemen. He tweeted that his group wants “all official Yemeni parties” to demand a ceasefire. “We announce an initiative to call all official Yemeni parties to ask to end launching rockets and drones against aggression countries… in order to deprive them for any reason to continue their aggression and siege, along a readiness to freeze and stop all military operations on all fronts in order to reach peace,” he wrote. His comments come after UN special envoy Martin Griffiths said on Friday that he plans to travel to rebel-held Sanaa in the coming week to finalise arrangements for peace talks to take place in Sweden soon.

This morning, following Naftali Bennett’s announcement, Haaretz writes ‘Israel Stopped Winning’: Bennett Slams Netanyahu, but Won’t Quit Government.’ Maariv reports that today the Zionist Union Party will put forward a vote of no-confidence in the government. Yediot Ahronot quotes Ayelet Shaked who said that ‘many people hoped they would resign and I’m sorry to be disappointing them. But we have responsibility. We’ll never resign from political considerations.’

Yediot Ahronoth refers to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s press conference last night as ‘Netanyahu’s Election Speech’ with Maariv and Haaretz focusing on Netanyahu’s argument that holding elections now would be irresponsible due to the complicated security situation.

Sima Kadmon in Yediot Ahronot writes that Bennett and Shaked apparently intend to announce their resignation today which will put an end to the fourth Netanyahu government. “If that truly is what they intend to do, that is liable to be a big mistake that will cost them far more than merely being blamed for taking down the right-wing government. The Jewish Home, as opposed to the other parties, has nowhere else to go. It doesn’t have an alternative coalition. Bennett is acting from his gut.” Referring to Bennett and Shaked’s likely resignation, Yossi Verter in Haaretz suggests “Netanyahu laid a beautiful trap for them Sunday night. He wove a web of arguments around them meant to undermine in advance all their justifications for resigning and forcing early elections. Let’s see how they get out of it.”

Discussing Netanyahu’s speech, Shimon Shiffer in Yediot Ahronot writes “Don’t be impressed by the insinuations Netanyahu made yesterday about dramatic events that require him to remain in the Defence Ministry. The outgoing defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said that he knows all the security secrets and that there is nothing in the pipeline, nothing that requires an immediate solution by the security establishment.”

In Maariv, Ben Caspit argues that Netanyahu is “banking on all of us being fools. After all, if the current period truly were so sensitive and volatile (spoiler alert: the situation here is always sensitive and volatile), Netanyahu himself wouldn’t have slashed yesterday morning 200 million shekels from the defence budget to cover police pension costs. And if we truly were on the eve of an existential war of annihilation, Defence Minister Lieberman wouldn’t have resigned.” Caspit concludes that “The man who warned yesterday against subordinating security to politics, subordinated security to politics”

Barak Ravid of Channel 10 news reported last night that President Trump will hold a crucial meeting this week with his top national security and foreign policy advisers to discuss both the details of the White House’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and the timing for its release. The meeting was scheduled a month ago, and sources briefed on the issue said the “peace team” has been preparing its content for a few weeks. Senior advisers like Kushner, Greenblatt and national security adviser John Bolton will attend the meeting – as will Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, flew to Washington for the meeting. US officials have said that the meeting will cover the most updated details of the plan but is set to focus even more on the timing and manner of its launch, according to U.S. officials.