The BBC, Reuters, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent and The Times report that suspected hijackers who boarded and seized a ship in the Gulf of Oman yesterday have left the vessel and all those remaining on board are safe. A UK maritime security agency said the potential hijacking of the Panama-flagged MV Asphalt Princess had ended but gave no further details. The bitumen tanker was seized heading into the congested approach to the Strait of Hormuz. It is not clear who seized the ship, but analysts suspected Iranian forces.

The Times writes that the US and other countries have returned more than 17,000 artefacts plundered after the 2003 American invasion. The antiquities, including a 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world’s first pieces of literature, vanished after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Many were smuggled out of the country and sold on international art markets.

The BBC, Financial Times and Independent speak to survivors of the devastating blast in Beirut port one year on. The explosion of hundreds of tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, killing more than 200 people, wounding thousands, and devastating swathes of the city. No one has yet been made accountable.

Reuters notes that French President Emmanuel Macron will try to raise more than $350 million in aid for Lebanon at a donors’ conference today marking the anniversary of the Beirut port blast, and send yet another warning to its squabbling political class.

The Guardian writes that the Lebanese capital remains a shell of a city as efforts to find who is to blame for tragedy have made little progress. The paper also publishes a series of photographs of the city shortly after the blast and now, showing how much of the area around the port has remained the same.

In The Times, Roger Boyes argues that the soon-to-be elected President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi will need to be ruthless at home and abroad to satisfy the Revolutionary Guard. “Raisi refuses to give up the proxy wars: they are part of his programme to complete the Islamic revolution, first as president, then later after his likely elevation to supreme leader. But he has to square the circle: stand firm against the West on the nuclear programme, resist pressure to change course and yet find the cash to soothe the Iranian poor.”

In the Israeli media, Yediot Ahronot reports that Hamas has accepted a new mechanism for the delivery of Qatari aid that involves the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the transfer process. According to the agreement, the PA will transfer Qatari funds through banks subject to the supervision of the Palestinian Monetary Fund. The transfer will be made using ATM cards and each bank that pays the amounts will issue special cards bearing the bank’s logo. The transfer includes assistance to 100,000 beneficiaries from poor families as well as to 27,695 other beneficiaries, most of whom are Hamas officials. Hamas reportedly agreed to the new mechanism after it was assured that no fee would be deducted from the family aid monies and that the list of recipients would include senior officials.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett toured the IDF Northern Command yesterday with Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi. Bennett is quoted by Maariv as saying: “To sit tranquilly in Tehran and to set the entire Middle East on fire from there — that’s over. We are acting to enlist the world, but at the same time we also know how to act alone. Iran knows the price that we exact when someone threatens our security.” In Israel Hayom, Oded Granot comments on the developments in Iran ahead of Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration as Iran’s new president tomorrow, and addresses the challenges faced by the US in its talks about renewing the JCPOA. Granot writes: “Senior American officials last night warned Tehran that time was not working to its benefit. Raisi and his sponsor, Khamenei, may not see things that way, however. Every day without a binding agreement that passes facilitates Iran’s efforts to push forward to a nuclear bomb. A state of affairs of that kind will force the Biden administration to choose between one of just two options, neither of which it wants: to renew and to double-down on the regime of sanctions that the previous administration imposed, a regime that overwhelmingly proved to be ineffective; or to threaten Iran with military action. One thing is beyond doubt. The US restraint in the face of Iran crossing red lines, such as Iran’s decision to increase uranium enrichment to 60%, encouraged the Iranians to expand their terrorist activities.”

Amos Gilead, a retired IDF major general, writes in Yediot Ahonrot about the upcoming visit of the Prime Minister to the US. Gilead says, “In no sense would it be an overstatement to say that this will be one of the most important and significant visits for Israel on account of the main issues that are on the table. Topping the agenda is the Iranian threat. One can state categorically that the previous government met with strategic failure in stopping Iran in its race to achieve a military nuclear option. In the Palestinian arena … it is important to present the Americans with a positive political plan for the Palestinians that will focus on improving the Palestinian Authority’s economic situation, coupled with refraining from taking unilateral measures that might scuttle a future agreed-to political resolution of the conflict.”

Channel 12 News reports that New Hope has introduced a bill that is designed to preclude someone who has been indicted from serving as prime minister. This bill is more far-reaching than the bill that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had intended, and it stipulates that if a prime minister is indicted while serving, he or she will have to resign within 30 days. New Hope leader and Justice Minister Gideon Saar said that he intends to push the bill through. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett approved this and asked him to coordinate its wording, but apparently New Hope didn’t wait and introduced the bill.

All the Israeli media refer to the new coronavirus decisions from the Cabinet meeting last night. In Yediot Ahronot, Sarit Rosenblum writes that “considering the slippery slope down which the State of Israel has been sliding carelessly, as if it were a fun water slide at a vacation resort in Greece, a lockdown now seems almost inevitable”. Rosenblum adds: “In this emerging emergency situation, the members of the coronavirus cabinet finally remembered to start fighting the pandemic … when you’re speeding towards the edge of a cliff, turning on your emergency lights isn’t going to prevent disaster. You have to slam on the brakes and hope that you still have enough road left to stop. We may not have enough road left in front of us, but we have to try with all our might. Right now.”

Walla writes about the struggle of Ethiopian residents in the Kiryat Moshe neighbourhood in Rehovot. According to government data, about 56 per cent of the neighbourhood’s residents are Ethiopians, who talk to the paper about the neglect, poverty and growing crime rates and place the blame on the police and government. The report says that despite promises of renewal, the neighbourhood remains one of the most neglected in the country.