The  BBC reports that Israel’s leaders often refer to their country being in a “tough neighbourhood” but recently there have been some extraordinary signs of friendliness with parts of the Arab world. Late last month, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife met the Sultan of Oman on a surprise, eight-hour visit – the first of its kind in over two decades. There was a lavish dinner, traditional Omani music and what Mr Netanyahu told his Cabinet were “very important talks”, promising more trips would follow. Sure enough, by the time he was speaking, Israel’s Sports and Culture Minister, Miri Regev, was at an international judo contest in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Reuters reports that Britain announced on Monday it would open a joint military training base in Oman in March 2019 as it looks to bolster its relationships with allies in the region. At a time of rising tension in the oil-producing Gulf region, Britain is diplomatically entwined in overlapping conflicts and disagreements involving Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others. Defence secretary Gavin Williamson announced the British-Omani training base as he visited the country to observe the end of a large-scale joint military exercise involving thousands of personnel practicing desert combat. “Our relationship with Oman is built on centuries of cooperation and we are cementing that long into the future with the opening of our new joint base,” Williamson said in a statement released by his department.

The Daily Mail  via AFP reports that a long-standing mediator, Egypt, is manoeuvring between Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate a durable truce to violence that has flared in the Gaza Strip in recent months — but with utmost discretion. The ongoing diplomatic efforts focus first and foremost on brokering an agreement that would see Hamas snuff out border protests in exchange for Israel softening its crippling decade-long blockade – Seeking ‘durable calm’ – Egypt has been central to these moves, and the UN is also involved. “We are working to ensure that there will never be any kind of armed conflict in the (Gaza) Strip and West Bank,” Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Sunday. The indirect negotiations have been unfolding in great secrecy, and scant information has filtered out. Egyptian media, including outlets close to the regime, has referred only to Palestinian sources or reports from Israel in its coverage of the talks.

Reuters reports that Iran’s telecommunications minister accused Israel on Monday of a new cyber attack on its telecommunications infrastructure, and vowed to respond with legal action. This followed comments from another official last week that Iran had uncovered a new generation of Stuxnet, a virus which was used against the country’s nuclear program more than a decade ago. “The Zionist regime (Israel), with its record of using cyber weapons such as Stuxnet computer virus, launched a cyber attack on Iran on Monday to harm Iran’s communication infrastructures,” Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said.

Reuters and the Independent report PM Netanyahu’s opinion about the Iran sanctions. Reuters reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed on Monday what he called U.S. President Donald Trump’s courageous decision in reimposing U.S. sanctions on Iran. “This day is an historic day,” Netanyahu said in public remarks to legislators from his right-wing Likud party. “I would like to again thank U.S. President Donald Trump for the courageous, determined and important decision. I think this contributes to stability and security and peace.” Patrick Cockburn from the Independent reports that, “Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in the forefront of pushing the US towards withdrawing from the nuclear deal and confronting Iran. ‘Iran is the biggest threat to Israel, to the Middle East and to world peace,’ he declared on Monday. ‘For many years I dedicated my time and energy to fighting the Iranian threat … Today we see the fruit of that long and continuous battle.’ But the Israeli leader, like Mr Trump, has previously specialised in belligerent rhetoric and threat inflation, but is cautious about engaging in real military conflict. This could change, but Israel would not gain much and could lose a lot from war with Iran and Hezbollah.”

The FT, The Telegraph, BBC, Reuters and the Express, report on Iran sanctions. The FT reports that Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury secretary, said on Monday: “Today, the US is executing on the final actions to withdraw [from] the Obama administration’s fatally flawed Iran deal. This is part of a maximum unprecedented economic pressure campaign that the US is waging against the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.” The Telegraph reports that the Trump administration has imposed draconian sanctions on Iran and vowed to punish any company in the world that flouts the embargo, asserting universal jurisdiction against bitter protests from Europe. “I promise you that doing business in Iran in defiance of our sanctions will ultimately be a much more painful business decision than pulling out of Iran,” said Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State. Violators will face “swift and severe” penalties. The BBC report that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the US will exert “relentless” pressure on Iran unless it changes its “revolutionary course”. His comments came hours after the Trump administration restored all sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, targeting core parts of Iran’s economy. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani earlier struck a defiant tone, saying the country will “continue selling oil”. “We will proudly break the sanctions,” he told economic officials. Mr Pompeo told reporters: “The Iranian regime has a choice: it can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble. Some analysts are sceptical Iran will buckle under U.S. pressure, at least in the short term. “The increasing pressures on Iran will not change the behaviour of the regime any time soon,” said Dennis Ross, a former U.S. official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said U.S. “bullying” was backfiring by making Washington more isolated, a reference to other world powers opposed to the initiative. The other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, have said they will stay in it. The Express reports that Tehran had vowed to smash the sanctions which target the Islamic republic’s vital oil, shipping, insurance, energy and banking sectors. His comments came after the UK suggested it was against Mr Trump’s decision to reintroduce the sanctions. A Downing Street spokesman said: “We regret the reimposition of sanctions by the US. “We continue to believe that the Iran nuclear deal makes the world a safer place and our position remains that as long as Iran continues to meet its obligations under the deal by respecting strict limits on its nuclear activity, we will be committed to it too. “As such we continue to fully support expanding our trade relationship with Iran and encourage UK businesses to take advantage of commercial opportunities that arise.” Mr Zarif said: “Today, the US defied the UN’s top court and Security Council by reimposing sanctions on Iran that target ordinary people. But US bullying is backfiring. The US – and not Iran – is isolated.”

The Daily Mail reports that Turkey has warned Washington against its new sanctions on Iran, saying isolating the Islamic Republic is “dangerous”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday. “Turkey is against sanctions, we don’t believe any results can be achieved through the sanctions,” he added. “I think instead of sanctions, meaningful dialogue and engagement is much more useful.”

Reuters report about the economic consequences of the Iran sanctions. Reuters reports that Iran said on Monday it has taken necessary banking measures to continue trade with its partners after the United States reimposed sanctions on Tehran’s energy and financial sectors, Iranian state TV quoted the head of the country’s Central Bank Abdolnassr Hemmati as saying. “We have been in talks with our trade partners and all the necessary actions have been taken for Iran’s interactions to continue,” Hemmati said. “We were expecting these sanctions, so we had plans in place for them and beyond… considering the possibility of banks being disconnected from SWIFT we have considered alternatives to replace it.” Henny Gloystein from Reuters reports that oil prices fell on Tuesday, weighed down by sanction exemptions from Washington that will allow Iran’s biggest oil customers to keep importing from Tehran, as well as by concerns that an economic slowdown may curb fuel demand growth.

The FT reports that European governments are locked in negotiations over a special purpose vehicle to safeguard trade with Iran, as a US crackdown on Tehran’s oil and finance sectors came into force. Hours before Monday’s launch of a US squeeze on Iran’s energy industry and central bank,  European diplomats said a planned special channel to safeguard non-US trade with Iran would not be ready in time. Agreement has yet to be reached on crucial details, including where to locate it as countries fear triggering a political and economic backlash from Washington if they play host. European states have not put a formal deadline on when the launch will be, but some diplomats had hoped to have the channel ready in time for the reimposed US sanctions.

The Evening Standard  and BBC report that Saudi Arabian experts sent to aid Turkish investigators probe the killing of Jamal Khashoggi instead sought to cover up the death and remove evidence, officials have said. Turkish authorities said members of a forensics team sent by the Kingdom to aid Istanbul detectives instead worked to undermine the investigation, and have been charged with obfuscating evidence. Turkey’s Sabah newspaper reported that two members of the joint Turkish-Saudi probe, including experts on chemicals and toxicology, “came to Turkey for the sole purpose of covering up evidence”, before Turkish police were allowed to search the Saudi Consulate.

Kan Radio reports that France will not propose a new initiative for Israeli-Palestinian talks at a summit  in Paris next week. A senior official from the French administration said that Paris would only advance its initiative if President Trump’s initiative either were not released or proved unsuccessful. Sixty heads of state are expected to attend a summit to mark the centenary of the end of World War I, including US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Army Radio reports comments by Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman, in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, in which he said Israel had arrested more than 500 lone-wolf terrorists in the past year. “We can discern relative quiet, but it must be said that this quiet is deceptive. Under the surface, it’s really bubbling. Hamas is trying with all its might to carry out terror attacks. We managed to foil 480 attacks over the past year. Out of that, we arrested 219 Hamas cells and thwarted 590 lone-wolf terrorists.”

Yossi Melman writes in Maariv about the sanctions imposed on Iran by the US arguing that these measures have “made the Iranian regime feel pressure, and that has caused the Iranians to begin to make mistakes. That is the only possible explanation for the extensive activity by Iranian intelligence against opponents of the regime on European soil. That activity runs contrary to any logic and to the interests of the regime in Tehran—which is not to anger Europe, and to try to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States.”

Yediot Ahronoth continues to follow the progress made by high school students from communities near the border who are in the middle of their five-day march to the Knesset to protest the security situation at home. The students have received support from other youth groups, bereaved families and Israelis on the road – many of whom have pledged to join the teenagers on different legs of their march.

Army Radio reports that the bill to sentence terrorists to capital punishment will have its first reading in the knesset next week. Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided in all likelihood to support it. Defence Minister Lieberman, who sponsored the bill, said this morning: “After an insistent battle for more than three years, the bill will be introduced and we won’t give up until we complete the mission.”

Yediot Ahronoth, Maariv and Haaretz and Israel Hayom report on a major diamond smuggling operation implicating Lev Leviev, an Israeli businessman. Two of Leviev’s relatives and four other close associates have already been taken into custody by the Israel Police, and Leviev, who has been in Russia for the past several months, is also wanted for questioning. The police believe that hundreds of millions of shekels’ worth of diamonds were smuggled into Israel and were not reported to the authorities.

Kan Radio reports that the head of the Jerusalem police Yoram Halevy has recommended allowing members of Knesset to visit the Temple Mount more often, from once every three months to once a month, despite the tensions in relations with Jordan.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Egypt has postponed a visit by Brazil’s top diplomat, Brazil’s foreign ministry said on Monday. Diplomatic sources said this was due to President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s vow to relocate the Brazilian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Aloysio Nunes Ferreira was set to fly to Cairo for a visit that included a meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

Maariv reports on a ‘contentious meeting’ in the Knesset Finance Committee which ultimately approved the Finance Ministry’s request to increase the budget for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plane by NIS 60 million.

Kan Radio reports that the Knesset voted in favour of the so-called loyalty in culture bill in its first reading. The bill is sponsored by Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev.