Reuters, FT, and The Telegraph report that the Saudi business conference, Future Investment Initiative (FII), has high profile individuals attending the event despite many world leaders having cancelled their attendence due to the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Telegraph reports that Saudi Arabia will open the FII on Tuesday, which aims to project the insular petro-state as a lucrative business destination as it seeks to diversify and set the stage for new ventures and multi-billion dollar contracts. The summit, nicknamed “Davos in the desert,” has been overshadowed by growing global outrage over the murder of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The chief executive of German industrial conglomerate Siemens Joe Kaeser was the latest among dozens of global executives to withdraw from the summit, hosted by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Ministers from the US, Britain and France, which have huge defence deals at stake with Saudi Arabia, have already pulled out of the summit. Corporate heads from JP Morgan to carmaker Ford and ride-hailing app Uber, as well as media powerhouses like Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times have abandoned plans to attend. Reuters and the FT report that Total’s chief executive on Monday said that he will attend the FII this week. The FT reports that “Total has never been in favour of sanctions and isolation . . . Total believes it is preferable to engage in frank, assertive dialogue, in which we make our values clear, with our partner countries,” the Total chief said, while underlining that he fully understands and shares “the emotions sparked by the death of Jamal Khashoggi under circumstances that must be clarified”. Asif Shahzad from Reuters reports that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has already left for Saudi Arabia to attend the investment summit. Khan told an interviewer before leaving he was concerned at Khashoggi’s death but could not skip the conference because “we’re desperate” for possible Saudi loans to shore up Pakistan’s economy.

Reuters and the Evening Standard report that the mystery behind Khashoggi’s death continues. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was still not satisfied with what he has heard from Saudi Arabia about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, but did not want to lose investment from Riyadh. “I am not satisfied with what I’ve heard,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I don’t want to lose all that investment that’s been made in our country. But we’re going to get to the bottom of it.” He later told news agency USA Today that he believed the death was a “plot gone awry”. Trump has expressed reluctance to punish the Saudis economically, citing the kingdom’s multibillion-dollar purchases of US military equipment and investments in US companies. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Riyadh yesterday and discussed “the importance of the Saudi-US strategic partnership”. Mnuchin’s spokesman said on Twitter the two discussed the Khashoggi investigation as well as Iran sanctions and Saudi economic issues. Mnuchin cancelled his speaking engagement at a high-profile Saudi investment conference on Tuesday, as did two dozen other top speakers.

The Nick Butler from the FT reports that the death of Khashoggi could have economic effects, particularly with the luring Iranian economic sanctions. The disappearance and death of Khashoggi continues to produce unexpected consequences and to reshape relationships in the Middle East and beyond. Turkey has been surprisingly tough in its response, while US President Trump has said that the affair will have “very serious consequences” for Saudi Arabia. The events surrounding Khashoggi’s death in Istanbul has change the game. Trump has appointed himself Saudi Arabia’s key ally and defender. The US may be insisting on changes in Riyadh and the replacement of Crown Prince bin Salman by someone with a better understanding of US interests in the region. But a change of personnel is secondary to broader support for the kingdom. Butler argues that continued support matters in Saudi Arabia, but it will have its price — an increase in Saudi output to cover any shortfall from Iran, giving the US full scope to take the hardest line on sanctions without risking escalating oil prices. A Saudi government that is dependent on US support has no choice but to agree. The impact of isolation of Iran is already being felt in a country with a deteriorating economy and with many western investors pulling back from potential deals involving oil, gas and petrochemicals. The companies involved will lick their wounds and wait. Many may quietly deplore the extraterritoriality of US sanctions, but none seem ready to take on the American legal system. Iran’s current rhetoric of defiance is predictable but unconvincing. Since 1979, the priority of the Iranian leadership has been to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. They could well decide that a strategic concession on their nuclear programme is preferable to a resistance that risks putting the survival of the regime at risk. Whatever the truth about the Khashoggi affair, the sudden disappearance of a well-known journalist and commentator has given Mr Trump the whip hand.

The FT reports that Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said the country was raising oil production to record levels, signalling the country had “no intention” of using its power as the world’s largest crude exporter to push back against international pressure following the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Speaking after the kingdom raised the spectre last week of utilising the so-called oil weapon for the first time since the 1970s, Energy Minister Khalid al Falih said on Monday that the country’s oil output would increase to close to 11m barrels a day. “Saudi Arabia is a very responsible country, for decades we used our oil policy as responsible economic tool and isolated it from politics,” Falih said in an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency.

Reuters reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a “monstrosity,” and vowed to halt all German arms exports to Saudi Arabia until the case is cleared up. “It must be cleared up. As long as it’s not cleared up, there will be no arms exports to Saudi Arabia. I assure you of that very decidedly,” Merkel said at a campaign rally in the town of Ortenberg ahead of elections in the state of Hesse.

Reuters reports that Israel released two Palestinian Authority officials who were detained at the weekend, police said, but gave no further details on the case. The two men taken into custody were Adnan Gheith, who holds the largely ceremonial post of Palestinian-appointed governor of Jerusalem, and Jihad Al-Faqeeh, the head of Palestinian intelligence in the city. They were arrested on suspicion of aiding the abduction a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, their lawyers said.

The Daily Mail and Reuters report that the Israeli military forces shot and killed a Palestinian who attempted to stab a soldier in the West Bank. The military says troops opened fire on the Palestinian after he tried stabbing the soldier, who was lightly wounded. The incident occurred on Monday in Hebron, outside the Cave of the Patriarchs.

The Daily Mail reports that Israeli farmers have voiced concern over Jordan’s decision not to renew the lease of small border areas for agriculture, which were given to Israel for periods of 25-years as parts of its landmark bilateral peace treaty. Jordanians welcomed the decision. Jordan’s King Abdullah II announced Sunday that he plans to pull out of annexes from the 1994 peace agreement that allowed Israel to lease Ghamr and the northern enclave of Baqura for 25 years. The leases expire next year. His decision reflects what have become cool relations between the kingdom and Israel. Last week saw a large protest against renewing the agriculture lease.

The Daily Mail reports that the Israeli military on Monday said it uncovered a militant outpost on the Lebanese border that Hezbollah guerrillas have set up under the guise of an environmental advocacy group. A senior officer from the military’s Northern Command said the new observation post in the village of Al-Adisa violates the UN resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and bars militant activity in southern Lebanon. He said Hezbollah is using a tree-planting campaign by “Green Without Borders” as a cover for its activity along the border to gather intelligence on Israeli troops. The Lebanese NGO has acknowledged its affiliation with the militant group but claims its purpose on the border is purely environmental. The Israeli officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under military guidelines, said the army discovered five other Hezbollah posts in 2017, in breach of the UN resolution. “We haven’t seen any Hezbollah arms yet, but we can see military infrastructure and it’s clear this is part of extensive activity in south Lebanon and in Lebanon in general that is a threat to the IDF and to Israel,” the officer said. “This is of course a buildup that we cannot tolerate.”

Business Insider reports that Palestinian-American billionaire developer Bashar al-Masri is the brains behind Rawabi, a $1.4bn planned city of 40,000 in the West Bank. It’s a project he has personally described as “a Marshall Plan to pick up” Palestine’s economy. It’s also a project that has received plenty of criticism from Palestinian activists who have said it “deepens Israel’s grip on the West Bank” and its economy. Numerous Israeli companies were contracted in the construction of Rawabi and Masri and worked closely with the Israeli Government to get the city approved. In a recent conversation with Business Insider, Masri said such activists miss the point: it’s a reality that Israel and the Palestinian territories’ economics are intertwined. As he put it, some 200,000 Palestinians already work in Israel and every freezer in the West Bank stocks Israeli ice cream. Masri said activists have made a mistake by targeting all of Israel with boycotts and divestment actions. If activists focused on boycotting the 400,000 Jewish-Israelis living on settlements in the West Bank, he said, the international community would be far more supportive.

Yahoo News via AP reports that China’s vice president on Monday kicked off a trip to Israel that illustrated the warming ties between the two countries. Wang Qishan is in the region for a three-day trip. The highlight will be co-hosting a joint summit of innovation cooperation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will also head to the West Bank to visit the Palestinians.

Haaretz and Yediot Ahronot report on comments from Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi who said yesterday that Jordan would not change its position on cancelling the land lease deal. “The territories will be restored to full Jordanian sovereignty within a year… This is a final decision. There won’t be any flexibility.” Yediot Ahronot quotes senior officials who said that the writing had been on the wall for the past two years, after the director of the Jordanian water authority, Saad Abu Hammour, warned the Israeli embassy in Amman that Jordan would have no choice but to demand that the areas be restored to Jordan’s control. He added that the Jordanians are furious that Israel hadn’t honoured the 2015 Red-Dead Canal project – which would involve building a desalination plant in Aqaba to provide drinking water to Israel and Jordan. Other Israeli officials said the decision to cancel the leases was primarily domestic and independent of Israeli actions. “The peace treaty gives the Jordanians the option of ending the lease at Tzofar and Naharayim, and very intense pressure was applied by the opposition in Jordan to act on that option, and that is what happened. The assessment in Israel is that that decision would have been made for domestic reasons, regardless of Israel’s steps or actions.” Kan Radio reports comments by Education Minister Bennett who said that Israel should negotiate with Jordan about the areas near Tzofar and Naharayim and that the Jordanians need us more than we need them.

Maariv reports that President Donald Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron last month that he’s ready to put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept his upcoming Middle East plan to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. Trump specifically mentioned the fact the US gives Israel billions of dollars in aid every year.

Maariv reports that the IDF has revealed that Hezbollah has been establishing observation posts roughly one kilometre from the Israeli border disguised as stations that serve an environmental non-profit organisation. Israel Hayom’s Yoav Limor writes that the “latest exposure of Hezbollah’s covert activity along the Lebanese border is part of the broader war that Israel has been waging against Hezbollah and its patron, Iran … the true importance of the report is much broader than the issue of the observation posts. Israel is demanding that the international community enforce its decisions and halt Hezbollah’s prohibited activity, and it is concurrently warning the Lebanese government (and people) that this activity is liable to bring war upon Lebanon, and that Hezbollah will bear the blame”.

Kan and Times of Israel report that the cabinet has been briefed on an emerging UN- and Egyptian-mediated agreement for a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The plan would see Qatar pay for the Gaza Strip’s fuel, as well as fund the salaries of civil servants in the enclave. The deal will also see the cessation of violent protests on the Gaza border with Israel. In turn, Israel will allow Qatari-funded fuel to return to Gaza and boost power supply.

Maariv reports that the security establishment is working rigorously to acquire surface-to-surface missiles as one of the lessons that was learned from the downing of the Russian reconnaissance plane in Syria.

Maariv reports on a rare public speech by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen at a Finance Ministry conference in Jerusalem. Cohen praised US President Donald Trump’s decisions to withdraw from the JCPOA nuclear agreement and to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “The handling of Syria by several countries was greatly impacted by the change in Washington’s attitude. That is very good for the State of Israel. People, including me, have the sense that there’s a difference between the good guys and the bad guys, and that that distinction is drawn more clearly [and] simply.”

Haaretz reports on the contents of a shelved al Jazeera investigative report which claimed that Israel is coordinating the work of organisations fighting for boycotts of Israel.

Israel Hayom quotes intelligence sources that Iran is building missile factories in Iraq as well as in Syria.

Kan Radio reports that the Knesset has unanimously voted in favour of the first reading of a bill to prohibit the purchase of services from prostitutes, and to anyone caught paying for such services NIS 1,500. The bill stipulates that the fine will be doubled for repeat offenders.