The Guardian reports that Nick Cave has called cultural boycotts of Israel “cowardly and shameful”. He received criticism after playing a concert in Tel-Aviv in 2017. He said that the boycott “is partly the reason I am playing Israel – not as support for any particular political entity but as a principled stand against those who wish to bully, shame and silence musicians”, and that the boycott “risks further entrenching positions in Israel in opposition to those you support”.

The Mail Online reports that Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini accused the European Union of being biased against Israel, in remarks during a visit to the Jewish state on Tuesday. “The European Union in recent years has been absolutely unbalanced… in its management of the conflict in the Middle East, condemning and punishing Israel every 15 minutes,” he told journalists. Salvini met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday during his visit to the country. He referred to Israel as “a safe haven for European and Western values in the region”, while adding that “whoever wants peace supports Israel”. Asked why he did not have any plans to meet Palestinian leaders, the Italian minister said he would do so on his next visit as his schedule was full this time. Salvini, who heads Italy’s anti-immigration League party, rejected criticism he has faced over his visit. “This is the fourth time I have come to Israel, and the fourth time I have been to Yad Vashem,” he said, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem that he is scheduled to visit on Wednesday. “Our government will fight all forms of anti-Semitic violence, regardless of how it manifests itself,” he said.

The Guardian via Associated Press reports that Iran has sentenced two human rights lawyers to six years in prison and a third to 13 years in prison, according to newspaper reports. The Arman daily said Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi and Arash Keikhosravi were sentenced to five years in prison for taking part in an “illegal gathering” and one year for “propaganda” against the ruling system. It added that they could appeal against the verdict. The pair were arrested in August when they took part in a protest outside parliament calling for free elections. They were released on bail last week.

Reuters reports that the United Nations proposed at initial talks between Yemen’s warring parties on Tuesday that they withdraw from the contested port city of Hodeidah, a lifeline for millions facing famine, and place it under the control of an interim entity. It was not clear if the Iran-aligned Houthi movement and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government would accept the proposal made at peace talks in Sweden which aim to avert a full-scale assault on Hodeidah, now a focus of the nearly four-year-old war. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected to travel to Sweden to support his Yemen special envoy’s efforts before the current talks conclude on Thursday. Another round could be held in early 2019. Aziz El Yaakoubi from Reuters reports that, Yemen’s warring parties are being pressed to agree thorny confidence-building measures, including the status of a strategic Red Sea port, in consultations on Wednesday before the close of the first U.N.-led peace talks in two years. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is due to attend final talks in Sweden on Thursday to support his envoy’s efforts and meet delegates from the Iran-aligned Houthi group and the Saudi-backed government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Ambassadors from countries that are permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – joined talks with delegation heads on Tuesday, sources said.

Reuters and the Daily Mail report on the Yemen Prisoner swap. Reuters reports that a prisoner swap in Yemen will take weeks and may involve the repatriation of third country nationals captured in the nearly four-year war, a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. The Daily Mail reports that Yemen’s government and rival rebels agreed Tuesday on a mass prisoner swap, exchanging more than 15,000 names, but warned that talks this week were unlikely to yield a truce. Nearly four years into a war that has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of starvation, the Saudi-backed government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Houthi rebels, linked to Riyadh’s arch-rival Iran, have been in UN-brokered talks since Thursday in the rural town of Rimbo in Sweden. Mediators are pushing for a deescalation of violence in two flashpoint cities: rebel-held Hodeida, a port city vital to the delivery of humanitarian aid, and Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city, the scene of some of the most intense fighting of the war. The rival parties have not yet agreed to UN proposed drafts on the two cities, which include the deescalation of hostilities.

Reuters reports that two launch units for anti-tank guided missiles recovered by a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen appear to have been manufactured in Iran during 2016 and 2017, according to a confidential United Nations report seen by Reuters on Tuesday. But U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres does not specifically state whether the discovery of the units in Yemen was a violation of a U.N. resolution that took effect in January 2016. It prevents Iran from importing and exporting arms or related material unless the Security Council has given approval. “The Secretariat found that they had characteristics of Iranian manufacture and that their markings indicated production dates in 2016 and 2017,” Guterres said in his biannual report to the Security Council on the implementation of sanctions on Iran. “The Secretariat also examined a partly disassembled surface-to-air missile seized by the Saudi-led coalition and observed that its features appeared to be consistent with those of an Iranian missile,” he wrote.

The Daily Mail via AFP and Reuters report on Hezbollah’s tunnels. The Daily Mail reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah of reprisals after the military said on Tuesday it had uncovered a third “attack tunnel” infiltrating its territory from Lebanon. “If Hezbollah makes the serious mistake of attacking us or confronting what we are doing now it will face unimaginable blows” in retaliation, Netanyahu said during a visit to northern Israel. “We will pursue this operation as long as the threat of Hezbollah tunnels persists,” Netanyahu, who was accompanied by the army chief of staff, said in a statement released by his office. Reuters reports that Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday he saw no risk to peace from an operation by Israel’s military to disable cross-border tunnels it says were dug into its territory by Hezbollah guerrillas. “We certainly took this issue seriously – the presence of tunnels at the border – and Israel informed us via the United States that it does not have aggressive intentions and it will continue to work on its (territory),” Aoun told a news conference. “We also do not have aggressive intentions… We are ready to remove the causes of the dispute, but after we obtain a final report and we set out the matters that need to be dealt with.”

Reuters reports that an Israeli human rights group disputed the army’s account that it killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank during a riot on Dec. 4, saying CCTV video footage showed no such disturbances when he was shot. Palestinian medics said 22-year-old Mohammed Habali suffered a bullet wound to the head in Tulkarm. A military spokeswoman said at the time that soldiers resorted to live fire after first trying less lethal methods against “a violent riot … in which dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks”. “It stands to reason … that the killing of Mohammed Habali, just like so many cases in the past, will be followed by an investigation that comes to nothing, that the incident will be whitewashed and criticism silenced,” B’Tselem said in a statement.

Reuters reports that the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he would introduce as soon as Tuesday a joint resolution condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which could force President Donald Trump to decide whether to sign or veto. Republican Senator Bob Corker said he expected the measure to pass the Senate, noting that its co-sponsors include Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. If it passes the House of Representatives, it would go to the White House for Trump to sign or veto. Corker said he hoped to introduce the legislation as soon as later Tuesday. “Hopefully, we’ll have a very, very strong vote on a resolution condemning the crown prince,” Corker said.

Reuters reports that Trump refused to comment on whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the murder, but he provided perhaps his most explicit show of support for the prince since Khashoggi’s death more than two months ago. “He’s the leader of Saudi Arabia. They’ve been a very good ally,” Trump said in an interview in the Oval Office.

Reuters reports that the Australia’s government met on Tuesday to discuss whether to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, two sources familiar with the matter said, a decision that would break with decades of policy and risk angering Asian neighbours. The Daily Mail reports that the decision on whether to move an embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is still an “ongoing process”, one federal cabinet minister says. Despite a report this week that cabinet had signed off on a decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Health Minister Greg Hunt insists it’s still to be decided. “This is one where the discussions are ongoing. I’ve been fortunate to be involved as part of the government, but it’s the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister that take the lead on that,” Mr Hunt told reporters on Wednesday.

Daily Mail Online reports that a quarter of a million Syrian refugees could return home next year, despite massive hurdles facing returnees, the UN said Tuesday, urging support to the millions still in neighbouring countries. “We are forecasting … up to 250,000 Syrians go back in 2019,” Amin Awad, who heads the UN refugee agency’s Middle East and North Africa operations, told reporters in Geneva. “That figure can go up and down according to the pace with which we are … removing the obstacles to return,” he stressed. “These are organised returns, completely voluntary, in safety … and of course with UNHCR involvement,” Awad said. Reuters reports that the Damascus government must help resolve, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.

 Maariv reports that a third Hezbollah tunnel was discovered yesterday that extended from Lebanese territory into Israel, near Kibbutz Yiftah, in the Upper Galilee.

The Jerusalem Post reports that an Australian decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is ‘pending’. The Australian cabinet met on Tuesday and discussed recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but no decision was announced. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, in a tweet on Tuesday, called upon “All Arab and Muslim countries to sever all relations with Australia, if it recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Haaretz report on the murder of Iman Awad, from Akko, allegedly by her husband. She is the 25^th woman who has been murdered this year. The action committee to prevent violence against women will hold demonstrations at 10:00 today in Akko, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beer Sheva.

Haaretz reports that a senior Israeli official said the US denied an Israeli request to impose sanctions on Lebanon. Netanyahu had reportedly asked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to put pressure on Lebanon to take responsibility for violating the terms of an agreement signed after the Second Lebanon War. But the US rebuffed Israel’s request to impose sanctions on Lebanon and the Lebanese army so they would take responsibility for Hezbollah digging tunnels into Israel and violating UN Resolution 1701.

Maariv reports fears of a new wave of terrorism in the West Bank. The “IDF and the GSS agree that there is a clear trend of escalating violence in the West Bank, and that the possibility of stopping that trend by means of military action is diminishing.” The paper cites the role that Hamas’s military leadership in Gaza has allegedly played in fomenting violence, and adds that the “IDF and GSS have excelled at stopping terror cells that receive instructions from large terrorist groups, and have also developed sophisticated technological means for coping with lone-wolf terrorists. However, they are finding it hard to deal with medium-level terror groups – groups of local terrorists who join together, buy guns, acquire a stolen car and head out to commit a terror attack.”

Kan Radio reports the IDF sent reinforcements to the West Bank after the shooting attack at the Ofra junction early this week. The reinforcements consist of several companies that will focus on providing roadside security and assisting the soldiers who are searching the Ramallah sector for the terrorists who committed the attack. Sweeps of the city are still underway, and Palestinian sources reported yesterday that IDF troops arrested four Palestinians and that several people were injured in clashes with the army.

The Times of Israel reports that for a second day in a row, Israeli security forces raided Palestinian Authority premises in northern Ramallah. The security forces were seen near the headquarters of the official Palestinian Authority news site Wafa and the PA Finance Ministry, Wafa reports. During the raid, clashes broke out between the security forces and Palestinian youth.

Yediot Ahronoth publishes extracts from an interview with Mohammed Dahlan on Russia Today. Dahlan said: “Obviously, the great dream we all have is for an independent Palestinian state to be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But the United States won’t agree and Israel is opposed. Instead of fostering illusions that will never come true, we need to begin to embrace the idea of a single state for both peoples and to demand that Palestinians have full rights in it. The deal of the century that the Americans are talking about as a solution to the Palestinian problem is a disaster. The two-state solution, with an Israeli and a Palestinian state, doesn’t appear likely to be enacted. That’s why I’m coming with a new proposal: to establish one state, in which the Palestinians will administer their lives without being dependent on Israel.” Dahlan also criticised Mahmoud Abbas. “The era of leaders in the Palestinian Authority ended with Yasser Arafat’s death. Abu Mazen merely plays the role of the administrator of a civilian authority in Ramallah, and nothing more than that. I’d advise him to visit Gaza in order to calm the residents, to encourage them, because the residents of Gaza are paying a very steep price.”

Yediot Ahronoth reports on news of price increases in 2019. One of the reasons for the rising cost of living is the strength of the US dollar against the shekel. The most salient price rise, the one that Israelis are likely to feel more than all the others, is the rise in the price of electricity. The Electricity Authority announced yesterday that the price of electricity is set to increase between 4.5% and 8.1% in January 2019.

The Times of Israel reports that Iraqi jets targeted Islamic State bases in Syria. The Iraqi military says its jets have bombed two Islamic State positions inside Syria that were being used as meeting places for the jihadist group. Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement that at least 30 IS members were present in one of the locations targeted and another 14 members in the other. The statement says the information was gathered from intelligence sources.