The BBC, Telegraph, Independent, Guardian and Financial Times report that Iran has suggested Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe could be released from jail in a prisoner swap with Iranians detained in the US and Australia. The BBC reports that the British-Iranian was jailed for five years in Iran in 2016 after being convicted of spying, which she denies. Speaking in New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said he felt sorry for Zaghari-Ratcliffe and had done his best to help her. “Let’s have an exchange. I’m ready to do it,” he said. Zarif said there were Iranians being held in prison in the US, Germany and Australia on what he claimed were phony charges. He highlighted one particular case of an Iranian woman who had given birth in an Australian prison, with her child now growing up outside prison. “Nobody talks about this lady in Australia,” he said. “So, what can I do as a foreign minister? I put this offer on the table publicly now. Exchange them,” he said, adding that he had the authority to do it. He said he made a previous offer to the US six months ago but got no response.

Reuters reports that an architect of a still-secret US plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took to Twitter again on Wednesday to disclose another element that it would not contain – a confederation with neighbouring Jordan, US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, had already tweeted “False!” on Friday to what he said were reports that the proposal would give part of Egypt’s Sinai desert to the adjacent Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist Hamas group. On Wednesday, Greenblatt denied that the plan envisages a confederation involving Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which administers limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank. “@KingAbdullahII & #Jordan are strong US allies. Rumors that our peace vision includes a confederation between Jordan, Israel & the PA, or that the vision contemplates making Jordan the homeland for Palestinians, are incorrect. Please don’t spread rumors”, Greenblatt wrote.

In the Guardian, Israeli political activist Yonatan Levi writes: “Israelis are not all right-wing. But our leftist parties have lost faith in themselves”. He argues that centrism will not win elections. Instead the left must find the courage to fight for its vision – and voters will respond.

The BBC reports that according to rescue workers, an explosion in the opposition-held Syrian province of Idlib has killed at least 15 people. Three buildings in the town of Jisr al-Shughour were destroyed by the blast, the cause of which was not known. A monitoring group said it happened in front of an office belonging to the jihadist alliance that largely controls the province, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Idlib has been hit by several bombings in recent months, as well as by Russian air strikes and Syrian army shellfire. HTS commanders have blamed previous bombings on President Bashar al-Assad’s intelligence services and the rival jihadist group Islamic State, saying they are seeking to destabilise the last opposition stronghold remaining in Syria after eight years of civil war which have left more than 370,000 people dead.

In the Times, Hamish De Bretton-Gordon writes: “The UN should not abandon Idlib”. The international coalition against ISIS, in which Britain has played a pivotal role, he argues, has invested huge resources and manpower over the last four years to defeat the terrorists in Syria and Iraq. However, adds De Bretton-Gordon, we are now in danger of helping to create the conditions for a new would-be caliphate and more ISIS attacks. The United Nations is quietly drawing up plans for Syria that could unwittingly help the terrorists. For reasons that can only make sense to mandarins in the UN, all the aid for Syria collected from donor nations, including Britain is to be centralised and delivered through Damascus. No aid is getting to Idlib, medicines are in very short supply, there is no mains electricity and food is scarce. Under these conditions, with no hope for surrender and plentiful UN aid seen to be available in Damascus, are we not creating the perfect conditions for Isis to recruit the bombers of tomorrow?

The Times reports that the Assad regime is moving more troops to eastern Syria to confront an Islamic State revival after jihadists seized new territory for the first time since the fall of Baghuz. Hundreds or even thousands of ISIS fighters are thought to have gathered in the desert between the city of Homs and the River Euphrates. At the end of last week ISIS fighters retook territory around the remote village of al-Kawm in a series of raids. According to pro-regime online reports, two battalions of Syrian army forces were surrounded, and a fierce battle ensued. Eventually the army was relieved by a squadron of fighters from a pro-regime Palestinian militia called Liwa al-Quds, but about 50 regime soldiers and Palestinians were killed, including senior officers.

The Guardian reports that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cast doubt on a possible plot to target Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli despite the arrest of a man with suspected links to Islamic State by Turkish police. The suspect, a Syrian national, was arrested after a police operation in Osmaniye and was among several ISIS members detained. “The reports that we are receiving are inconclusive about any link between that arrest and any possible planned event at Gallipoli itself,” Morrison told reporters in Townsville on Thursday. “In fact to make that assumption would be, I think, making a very big assumption.”

The Guardian and Independent report that Britain has issued its sharpest condemnation of the direction of Saudi Arabian human rights policy, describing its mass executions as “repulsive” and “utterly unacceptable in the modern world”. The Guardian  reports that the remarks came after further details emerged of the Saudi government’s execution on Tuesday of 37 people, including three who were minors at the time of their alleged offence. The Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan, answering an urgent question in the Commons, spurned the usual diplomatic niceties, saying the mass executions were “a deeply backward step which we deplore”. He added it was “deplorable and totally unacceptable” that at least one of those executed had been a minor at the time of the arrest. He added: “Any country needs to realise that when it uses methods like this they will eventually backfire. The practical benefit is entirely negative.”

The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia is attracting financiers again, as the outrage surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi dims. Six months ago John Flint, chief executive of HSBC, was among the financiers who abandoned a flagship Saudi Arabian investment conference amid international outrage over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But on Wednesday he and other senior bankers proved that any reputational concerns about dealing with the kingdom had been shortlived. “It’s a privilege to be back in Saudi Arabia,” said Flint, one of several high-profile bankers who took to the stage with Saudi ministers at a Riyadh conference where the kingdom was showing off its financial pulling power. “We are committed; this is an economy we have a lot of confidence in.” He was joined by BlackRock’s chief executive Larry Fink, who had also pulled out of October’s “Davos in the Desert” event. Fink said the region was “not perfect”, but that changes in the kingdom over the past two years had been “pretty amazing” and offered “great opportunities”.

The Times reports that a US navy seal officer faces a court martial amidst accusations of war crimes in Iraq. The court martial of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a platoon commander, next month is primed to become a watershed moment for the most elite commando force in the US military. Gallagher, 39, has been charged by the navy with murder, attempted murder and almost a dozen other offences, including obstruction of justice and bringing “discredit upon the armed forces”. According to Seals who served under him in Iraq in 2017 he casually stabbed a captive teenager to death with a customised hunting knife and then arranged a group photograph by the corpse. He shot an unarmed old man and a girl from his sniper’s nest and routinely unleashed rocket and heavy machine gun fire on neighbourhoods without cause.

Maariv reports that Iran has been reducing its military presence in Syria. Israeli intelligence sources told the paper that Israeli activities against Iranian forces coupled with the worsening state of the Iranian economy have forced Iran to abandon its plans to build air bases in Syria.

Yediot Ahronoth reports that President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, took to Twitter again on Wednesday to rebut another rumour about the US plan saying it would not propose a confederation with Jordan. Greenblatt had already tweeted “False!” on Friday to what he said were reports that the proposal would give part of Egypt’s Sinai desert to the adjacent Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas. Yesterday he wrote “@KingAbdullahII & #Jordan are strong US allies. Rumours that our peace vision includes a confederation between Jordan, Israel & the PA, or that the vision contemplates making Jordan the homeland for Palestinians, are incorrect. Please don’t spread rumors”.

Amir Tibon writes in Haaretz that the Trump administration and the Palestinian Authority are caught in a battle over how the Arab world will respond to the administration’s Middle East peace plan. Both sides are trying to convince key Arab countries to accept their views on the plan with the US administration seeking a clear separation between the Palestinian reaction and that of the Arab world. The assumption in the White House, according to Arab and European diplomats who have spoken with Haaretz, is that the Palestinians will reject the plan. The administration hopes, however, that some Arab countries will agree to accept it as a “basis for discussions.” The main concern in the White House, according to the diplomats who spoke with Haaretz, is over Jordan and Egypt. The administration is more optimistic, they said, when it comes to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — two countries led by young crown princes who have a strong personal relationship with Jared Kushner.

Haaretz and Yediot Ahronoth report the results of the Pew Research Centre poll on attitudes to Israel. Chemi Shalev in Haaretz focuses on the lack of Democrat support for Israel, writing that “Netanyahu’s pandering gestures are pleasing for many Israelis and Trump’s fans in America, but they make Democratic stomachs turn. Most Democrats view Trump as a clear and present danger to America and its democracy — and his supporters as active collaborators. Netanyahu, who turned Israel into Trump’s most enthusiastic cheerleading squad, has cast himself, in the eyes of Democrats, as the devil’s disciple. Sympathy for him and, by extension, for Israel is plummeting… Netanyahu, as Billy Joel might say, didn’t start the fire. But he doused it with high-octane gasoline that is turning it into an inferno. Israel has never had a prime minister so closely identified with one side of the US political map.”

The Times of Israel and Maariv report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wished to “empower” Israel’s Druze population and vowed to address the community’s needs and concerns. Druze leaders have lambasted legislation that has created official discrimination between Jews and non-Jews. On the occasion of the Druze holiday of Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu’ayb, Netanyahu said in a statement: “I view empowering the Druze population as very important. We have enacted policies of increased investment in Druze communities in order to minimise gaps and increase equal opportunity.”