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Media Summary

UAE to move weekends to Saturday and Sunday

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BBC News, The Financial Times, The Independent, The Times and The Telegraph report that French authorities arrested a Saudi national suspected to be part of the hit squad that assassinated and dismembered journalist Jama Khashoggi. Khaled Aedh Alotaibi was arrested at the airport, and is a former Saudi royal guard. French prosecutors are still confirming his identity, while senior Saudi officials have said the arrest was a case of mistaken identity. Alotaibi would be the first member of the hit squad to be arrested outside of Saudi Arabia.

The Independent, The Guardian, and The Times report that the UAE announced it will move its weekends to Saturday and Sunday beginning in 2022. The Gulf country traditionally held its weekends on Fridays and Saturdays. The move is designed to ensure that the country’s economy falls in line with western schedules and the global market. The aim of the new workweek is also to improve economic competitiveness and work-life balance.

The Times and The Telegraph report on a reported Israeli airstrike on Syria’s main port in Latakia, hitting several shipping containers. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several Iranian weapons shipments were struck. This is seen as a rare Israeli attack, as Latakia falls within the ‘Russian sphere of influence.’

In the Israeli media, Haaretz reports that an Israeli woman was stabbed this morning in an attack in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Police apprehended a female Palestinian minor suspected of carrying out the attack. She was found about an hour later at a school near the scene of the stabbing following a wide-scale police search operation in which a helicopter was also deployed. According to the police, the woman was walking with her children, including a baby, when the Palestinian teen stabbed her. Hamas called the attack an act of heroism which “proves the greatness of our people whose resistance is unbreakable”. Sheikh Jarrah has been the scene of violent demonstrations this year as several Palestinian families face eviction from their homes amid a decades-long legal battle. Since mid-November, one Israeli has been killed and ten wounded in six lone-wolf attacks by Palestinians against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Kan Radio reports that the shipping containers that were targeted in an attack late Monday night in Latakia contained sophisticated Iranian weapons. The report cites cruise missiles and suicide drones as two kinds of weapons that are believed to have been targeted. While Israel formally refused to comment on the attack, Maariv describes statements that were made by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett yesterday as an allusion to Israel’s role in the incident. Bennett said: “We are repelling the bad forces of this region, day and night. We won’t stop for even a second. That happens nearly every day. We will continue to act against the destructive forces. We will persist and we shall not tire.”

In Yediot Ahronot, Alex Fishman writes that “the previous governments had approved long-term IDF plans for development and acquisitions for coping with Iran, but in the past three years some of that money was spent elsewhere. It became evident that the political echelon’s ability to influence and oversee the IDF’s military build-up was limited.” However, Fishman argues that Iran’s progress in its nuclear development has pushed the government to establish “closer oversight than had existed in the preceding decade” over how the IDF is spending the new NIS 5bn budget earmarked for coping with Iran.

Channel 12 News quotes Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit talking about Benjamin Netanyahu in a private conversation as a danger to democracy that Israel was spared only thanks to the “grace of God.” Mandelblit, who is described as making his explosive comments in a “conversation in which he felt at liberty to speak freely,” accused Netanyahu of trying to seize control of the judicial branch to derail his trial and of trying to establish a faux democracy of the kind that exists in Hungary and Poland. Mandelblit reportedly said: “Without noticing, we suddenly found ourselves in a war over the attorney general’s legitimacy, over the DNA of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the modern era. That, I think, is ultimately the story. It took me time to understand the story.”

Kan Radio reports that Attorney General Mandelblit is not expected to order a new investigation in response to new information that was recently provided by Arnon Milchan’s personal assistant, Hadas Klein, about jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of shekels that was bought for Sara Netanyahu. Attorney General Mandelblit is disinclined to begin a new investigation lest that result in a serious delay in the Netanyahu trial. Furthermore, there are several legal difficulties as well, since Sara Netanyahu is neither a defendant in the trial nor a witness for the prosecution. Moreover, there is no evidence of any involvement by Netanyahu in the purchase of the jewellery gifts.

Israel Hayom reports that two high-ranking Shin Bet officials have been reprimanded following an investigation into a major security breach at the home of Defence Minister Benny Gantz, in which a cleaner at Gantz’s home who had not been vetted by the agency is facing charges for allegedly offering to spy for Iran. Shin Bet head Ronen Bar appointed an external committee to probe how suspect Omri Goren – who had multiple criminal convictions – would have been employed at Gantz’s home. The committee described the affair as a “professional failure,” citing lack of coordination at the professional level and a lack of coordination in “work procedures.”