The BBC and Reuters report that Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the former heir to the throne of Jordan, has said he is renouncing his title of prince. Prince Hamzah said his “personal convictions” were not in line with the “modern methods of our institutions”. The prince is the fourth son of the late King Hussein and younger half-brother of the ruling King Abdullah. He was placed under house arrest last year after accusing the country’s leaders of corruption, incompetence and harassment. z

In The Times, Greg Carlstrom summarises the main objectives of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip last week to the Middle East and north Africa. “Like much of the world, the Middle East was split during the Cold War. The monarchies were broadly pro-American, while many of the republics aligned with the Soviets. The collapse of the USSR left America as the region’s main power. It promised to protect the Gulf states from aggressors, and to give Israel diplomatic support and top-notch weapons. All sides now feel jilted.”

Reuters publishes comments this morning by Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh who said the US is responsible for the pause in talks between Tehran and world powers in Vienna aimed at reviving the JCPOA 2015 nuclear deal. “America is responsible for the halt of these talks … a deal is very much within reach,” Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference. “Washington should make political decision for the deal’s revival,” he said, adding that Tehran would “not wait forever”.

In The Telegraph, Con Coughlin writes: “In modern warfare, winning the propaganda war can be just as important as achieving military success on the battleground in terms of shaping the ultimate outcome of a conflict. Which is why it has been so heartening to see our intelligence and military chiefs, normally so reticent about hogging the limelight, making sure that it is the West, and not Russia, that is dominating the narrative on the war in Ukraine.”

With Ukraine under attack from Russia, the developing world’s ‘breadbasket is being bombed’, the UN says. Ahead of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, the Guardian’s Cairo-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam captured the hopes, fears and prayers of Egyptians, for two-thirds of whom state-subsidised bread is a lifeline.

The BBC, Independent and the Guardian report that an UN-brokered two-month truce has been agreed by warring parties in Yemen It is the first nationwide truce agreed since 2016 in a war which has killed nearly 400,000 people, according to UN estimates. The deal between the Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels – came into effect on Saturday – the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan for many Muslims. US President Joe Biden hailed the UN-brokered truce as a long-awaited “reprieve for the Yemeni people”, but he cautioned: “These are important steps, but they are not enough. The ceasefire must be adhered to, and as I have said before, it is imperative that we end this war.”

The Israeli media is dominated by the security situation in Israel and the West Bank following the recent spate of attacks and the start of Ramadan over the weekend. In Yediot Ahronot, Nahum Barnea lays out the current situation, focusing specifically on the Palestinian stipend policy, the separation barrier and Israel’s policies in response to the spate of attack. Barnea writes: “It’s still too soon to say whether this is a wave or a ripple. In 2015-2016, in the previous wave, 47 Israelis and three foreign nationals were murdered — a development that was grim, but not traumatic. The current bombastic calls for a second Operation Defensive Shield are puzzling. During Operation Defensive Shield — and actually even before that, in Operation Colour Campaign (February 2002), the Palestinian Authority was the enemy and the territories were enemy territory. Today the IDF operates everywhere in the West Bank, and the PA is a rival and a partner, not a military enemy. And today our concerned gaze is turned not only to the West Bank but also to within Israel, to East Jerusalem, the mixed cites [and] the Arab sector.”

Israel Hayom writes that Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan has threatened to petition the High Court of Justice if the holes in the security fence are not immediately sealed. The paper says that over 50,000 Palestinians enter Israel illegally through holes in the security barrier in order to work. Security officials turn a blind eye to what has become a growing phenomenon in recent years with the understanding financial horizons bring quiet while distress leads to unrest and despair and from there terror. However, residents in the seam zone have frequently complained that Palestinians have been taking advantage of the breaches in the fence to engage in criminal activity in Israel such as breaking into homes and stealing cars. “The writing is on the wall. The next disaster is not a matter of days. It’s a matter of hours,” Alfei Menashe Regional Council head warns.

All the papers follow the Israeli government’s reaction to the horrific scenes in Bucha, Ukraine, over the weekend in which the bodies of hundreds of civilians were discovered in what is believed to have been a massacre committed by Russian forces. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said last night: “No one can remain indifferent in the face of the awful pictures that came to light in Bucha after the Russian army left the site. Deliberate attacks on the civilian population are a war crime and I condemn that strenuously.” This morning Defence Minister Benny Gantz said war crimes had been committed in Bucha. He added: “I condemn murder of that kind. During times of war, one has to maintain battlefield morality. Civilians are liable to be killed during warfare, but they must not be murdered.” Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman was more cautious in his condemnation of the attacks in Bucha. He said: “There are harsh images, and we all condemn all war crimes. There are mutual accusations. The Russians blame the Ukrainians. There is a war there and we must, on the one hand, maintain Israel’s moral position and also our interests.”

Maariv notes that the Aliya and Integration Ministry and the Jewish Agency are continuing their efforts to extricate and bring to Israel new immigrants from war-torn Ukraine. According to government figures, this past weekend 157 new immigrants were received by Population and Immigration Authority officials at Ben Gurion Airport. Another 300 new immigrants are expected to arrive from Ukraine today, on flights from Poland and Romania. Meanwhile, the wave of immigration from Russia has also continued, with more than 10,000 people already filling out digital immigration applications and another 10,000 people in Ukraine have also expressed an interest in immigrating to Israel. To date, roughly 10,000 new immigrants have already arrived in Israel. More than 4,000 of the immigrants have chosen to stay at hotels that were paid for by the Aliya and Integration Ministry.

Kan Radio reports that the Foreign Ministry has instructed Israeli embassies around the world not to accept donations for Independence Day events from people who are currently being sanctioned. The intention is Russian oligarchs, though the wording of the Foreign Ministry statement refrains from citing that specifically. Israel has not yet imposed any sanctions against Russian oligarchs, but it has announced that it will not serve as a means for circumventing sanctions.

The Jerusalem Post follows the 49^th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where it approved four anti-Israel resolutions, including a call for a limited arms embargo against the Jewish state. Israel was the only country the UNHRC censured multiple times. Russia, which is a UNHRC member, was censured only once for its invasion of Ukraine, with a resolution that passed 32-2, with 13 abstentions. Other countries – North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Syria – were taken to task for human rights abuses with only one resolution per country.