BBC News, the Guardian, Independent, FT, ITV News, Sky News, Daily Mail and Reuters report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he cannot form a government, handing the opportunity to Blue and White Chair Benny Gantz. Netanyahu stressed that he had been repeatedly rebuffed in his attempts to form a coalition.

BBC News, the Telegraph, FT, Sky News and Reuters report that Lebanon’s government has approved a package of economic reforms to quell the biggest protests to sweep the country in 15 years. Measures include steps to cut Lebanon’s inflated deficit, reducing politicians’ salaries by half and giving financial assistance to families living in poverty. It comes as demonstrators took part in a fifth day of protests and widespread strikes.

In the Independent, Richard Hall and Hannah Abdel-Massih examine “how Lebanon’s spontaneous protests over taxes led to calls for revolution”.

The FT explains that heightened unemployment and the absence of reform underpin protests in the Middle East and North Africa: “Arab youth vent their anger at broken economic promises”.

The Guardian, Telegraph, Times and Independent report that Save the Children say at least 60 British children – twice the number initially feared – are trapped in north-east Syria after fleeing areas held by IS during the recent escalation in fighting. Amid efforts by European countries (UK included) to repatriate children, the figures underline the scale of the problem.

The Daily Mail reports that Elizabeth Warren warned that if she becomes president she could make aid to Israel conditional on it ceasing settlement expansion in the West Bank. “Right now, Netanyahu says that he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements, that does not move us toward a two-state solution”, Warren said when asked what her stance was on aid and settlement-building.

Reuters reports that a senior Israeli official attended a maritime security conference in Bahrain on Monday, in another sign of increasing Gulf state-Israeli rapprochement.

BBC News, the Times, Sky News and Reuters report that US President Donald Trump has stated that US troops will stay in Syria despite his call for them to withdraw,. He said a small number would protect oil fields while others would stay near Israel and Jordan, and insisted that the US is “fully prepared” to use military force if “needed” against Turkey. Meanwhile, residents of towns in north-east Syria pelted US forces with vegetables on Monday, as soldiers withdrew from Kurdish-controlled areas.

Reuters reports that US lawmakers have kept up their push to impose sanctions on Turkey if it does not end its offensive in north-east Syria, and a leading Kurdish politician called on President Trump to stop the “ethnic cleansing” of the Kurds.

Reuters reports that German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has suggested the creation of a security zone in northern Syria to protect displaced civilians and contain IS militia. The security zone would “involve Turkey and Russia”, Kramp-Karrenbauer told Deutsche Welle.

Channel 4 News reports that mounting evidence suggests that civilian infrastructure (schools included) are being targeted by the Syrian regime and Russia in air strikes in Idlib province.

The FT and Reuters report that Turkish authorities have detained three elected mayors in what critics say is part of a crackdown against opposition to Ankara’s military operation in Syria. The raids, in the predominantly Kurdish south-east, targeted politicians from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), including Diyarbakir Mayor Adnan Selcuk Mizrakli.

Reuters reports that Turkey is holding covert contacts with Syria’s government to avert direct conflict in north-east Syria, according to Turkish officials.

Reuters reports that US Defence Secretary Mark Esper has arrived in Saudi Arabia on a visit intended to reassure Riyadh over bilateral ties. Reuters reports that Esper restated the US “longstanding commitment” to Afghan security forces.

Reuters reports that Iraqi Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani has stated that the US withdrawal from Syria was “undesirable” but that the semi-autonomous region appreciated the US historical role in protecting it.

In the Times, Sarah Tor explains why she cannot “keep silent over Turkey in Syria any longer”.

In the Independent, Maya Thomas-Davis and Lorraine Leete contend that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “using refugees as blackmail to avoid accusations of invading Syria – the EU-Turkey deal must end now”.

The Times reports that archaeologists excavating a Stone Age site in the UAE have found the world’s oldest pearl. Carbon testing showed that the layer in which the pearl was found is between 7,600 and 7,800 years old.

The FT reports that Volkswagen has suspended plans to open a new production site in Turkey after the Turkish incursion into north-east Syria.

The Times reports that a former SS guard on trial for complicity in the murder of 5,230 concentration camp prisoners told a German court today that he did not know whether they “had been killed or had died of natural causes”.