The Telegraph, the Guardian, BBC News Online and the Daily Mail report that Christian leaders are taking the rare step of closing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in protest at Israeli tax policies which they say unfairly target the Christian community. The Church is built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified. Leaders of the Catholic, Greek and Armenian denominations said they were indefinitely closing the church because of a “systematic campaign” by Israeli authorities and the decision by Jerusalem city government to start levying taxes on church properties and a proposed bill in the Israeli parliament that would make it harder for them to sell property.

The Daily Mail and the Guardian report on the funeral of Haredi Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach. Auerbach had led a relatively small but fervent group of followers, known as the Jerusalem Faction, who opposed more mainstream ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders. He was among the strongest opponents of attempts to force ultra-Orthodox Jewish students to serve in the military like their secular counterparts.

The Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Times, BBC News Online, the Financial Times and the Independent report on the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ghouta. According to reports, air strikes by the Syrian government on the rebel-held enclave have continued despite a ceasefire resolution passed by the UN Security Council on Saturday. The latest attacks include a ground offensive that began hours after the UN urged a 30-day truce “without delay”. On Sunday, France and Germany called on Russia to put pressure on the Syrian government to honour the ceasefire. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and militias backed by Iran clashed with rebels in three areas around the suburb. Activists said that tens of people had died under repeated bombardment yesterday. They later claimed that shells containing chlorine had injured at least 16 people in the town of al-Shifonieh, including a child who later died.

The Independent reports that thousands of African asylum seekers, migrants and their supporters are participating in recent protests against Israel’s plans to deport them. Demonstrators carrying signs saying “we’re all humans” and “refugees and residents refuse to be enemies” marched through the streets of the south Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Neve Shanaan, where there is a large migrant community.

The Daily Mail via AFP reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to be questioned as a suspect in a further case of alleged corruption and as a witness in another case. The police, who have questioned Netanyahu seven times since the beginning of 2017, in mid-February recommended that he be indicted for graft [corruption], fraud and breach of trust in two other cases.

Yahoo News UK via Reuters reports that on Friday Netanyahu hailed the U.S. announcement that it would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May as “a great day for the people of Israel”.

The Mirror reports that Labour may finally open a second investigation into Ken Livingstone next month – almost a year since it was announced. Livingstone has now been suspended since April 2016 for claiming Adolf Hitler was supporting Zionism in the early 1930s. A hearing last April found he breached Labour Party rules and suspended him for two years in total – expiring on April 27 this year. But a second process, sparked by numerous other comments the politician made defending himself, has still not happened.

All the Israeli media focus on text messages revealed last night by Channel Ten which show that a judge and investigator in Case 4000 had coordinated how long the suspects would be held in custody.v Eran Shaham-Shavit, the legal counsel for the Israel Securities Authority’s investigative unit, and Ronit Poznanski-Katz, a judge from the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court, who presided over the remand hearings for the suspects in Case 4000 sent messages to one another before the hearing began. Shaham-Shavit wrote that the prosecution would seek the release of some suspects but not others saying “Try and act surprised” in the courtroom to which Poznansky-Katz responds“I’m practicing my surprised face”.

Zionist Union Party Chairman MK Yoel Hasson said:“Public confidence in the Israeli justice system is the holy of holies. It’s based on every suspect having the right to a fair proceeding. Both the investigator and the judge should leave their positions this very night.” Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid said that “the judge’s correspondence with the investigator is a disgrace to the court and an insult to the public and the system of the rule of law” A statement issued on behalf of the Justice Minister said: “Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Supreme Court President Esther Hayut discussed the matter as disclosed on Channel Ten and decided together to ask the judicial ombudsman to clarify the matter and take action in keeping with the results of the clarification.” This morning on Army Radio, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said “When you see a judge coordinating her rulings with the prosecution, it’s really a shocking thing, and in my opinion a criminal offence.”

Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahronot writes that “up until yesterday it was fairly clear who the good guys and who the bad guys were in this case. Today that is a bit less clear. To use a metaphor from the world of sports, the judge and the attorney scored an own-goal in a crucial and tied game in the 90^th minute.” Also in Yediot Ahronot, Sima Kadmon argues that the “damage that he [Eran Shaham-Shavit] inflicted yesterday on the justice system and the public’s confidence in it is likely to be irreparable.”

The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz report that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre closed its doors on Sunday to protest announced plans by the city municipality earlier this month to collect property tax (arnona) from church-owned properties on which there are no houses of worship. Jerusalem Mayotr Nir Barkat said that churches and prayer houses are exempt from paying property taxes, “and it will stay this way….But does it make any sense for a commercial area that has hotels and shops to be exempt from paying arnona just because they are owned by a church? Church leaders described the moves by Israeli authorities as a “systematic campaign of abuse against churches and Christians.”

Israeli media reported that Israeli satellites had revealed the Russian Air Force is using Khmeimim Airbase in Syria as a base for the Sukhoi Su-57, a fifth-generation stealth fighter.  This is an advanced aircraft, with stealth capabilities, the counterpart to the American F-22, which the US has refused to sell to foreign countries. A spokesperson for the Pentagon said that the US did not consider them a threat to their operations and would continue to coordinate.  The Israeli military are thought to have reached a similar assessment at this stage.  In an opinion piece in Haaretz Anshel Pfeffer writes that “there is no military justification for Russia to deploy its most advanced and – so far at least – nonoperational stealth fighter jet to Syria” concluding that “there is no other conceivable reason to send the Su-57 to Syria other than for Putin’s greater glory”.

Maariv reports that Netanyahu is to be questioned by police in the Case 3000 and 4000 investigations on Friday.