In the UK media, The Telegraph, Financial Times and the Guardian follow developments in Israel that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is close to finalising negotiations over a plea deal in his corruption trial, in a move that could oust the long-time leader from politics but may keep him out of jail. The papers suggest that a plea bargain would trigger a leadership race within the Likud party with some analysts predicting that the anti-Netanyahu coalition that was cobbled together to end his reign over the country could fall apart.

The Times reports on the internet blackout in Beirut. Ogero, the state-run internet company in Lebanon, had warned of rolling blackouts as its generators were running out of fuel, in the latest sign of the country’s political and economic collapse. Yesterday morning Ogero said that generators in west Beirut were out of diesel and that the internet would go dark in three districts, affecting 26,000 subscribers. By lunchtime a resident had donated diesel, allowing the service to resume, but by that time a generator had also run out in east Beirut. Imad Kreidiyeh, Ogero’s head, threatened to resign at what he said was the government’s incompetence.

The Financial Times reveals that pension cash for British Gas workers was used to buy Israeli cyber developer NSO Group, whose spyware has been found on the phones of human rights activists and journalists. The retirement investment fund of Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, was among the biggest contributors to the €1bn fund that bought a stake in NSO in 2019, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Guardian provides an update on nuclear talks in Vienna, arguing that whilst no deadline has been formally set, if there is no progress in less than two weeks the process will come to an end leaving a dangerous vacuum. Talks will resume today, with both the UK and Germany represented by new chief negotiators, Stephanie Al-Qaq and Tjorven Bellmann respectively. Detail on progress is being kept to a minimum. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian ambassador to the talks and a key interlocutor, has occasionally posted cryptic tweets designed to give a sense of momentum.

The Independent reports that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is feeling more hopeful about her prospects of being released from prison after a British Council employee detained in Iran on spying charges was freed and returned back to the UK.

The Telegraph writes that Iranian security forces have arrested the niece of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after she spoke out in favour of Iran’s old royal family, overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Farideh Moradkhani, an activist who campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty, was detained on Friday outside her house and taken to the notorious Evin prison, according to the Human Rights Activists’ News Agency of Iran. Meanwhile Iran’s deputy interior minister, Taghi Rostamvand, said Sunday that the inability of President Raisi’s government to solve the country’s numerous problems “has led to the general belief among the public that a clerical system of governance is completely incapable of running the country’s affairs and only a secular regime can do that”.

In the Israeli media, Channel 12 news reports that the US has denied brokering an agreement for Israel to indirectly supply natural gas to Lebanon. “Media reports that the US has brokered an energy deal between Israel and Lebanon are false,” the US State Department wrote on Twitter. According to reports over the weekend, the agreement was signed in secret and will see Israel transfer gas from the offshore Leviathan field to Jordan. From there it will be transferred to Syria and on to Lebanon through an old gas pipe that requires repairing and extending, which could take several years. The agreement, reportedly approved by the US and Russia, is designed to provide Lebanon with an alternative to Iran, as it seeks to recover from a deepening economic crisis. The Lebanese authorities denied the Channel 12 news report that they had agreed to accept Israeli gas. The government insisted it was intending to receive only Egyptian gas.

Yediot Ahronot reports that quarantine for COVID cases and for the people who were exposed to them is likely to be shortened to five days. Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz has asked officials to move ahead on this given the rise in the number of cases and a final decision is expected later today or in the next few days. Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton has welcomed the decision and said that it was time to end quarantining for healthy children and to relieve their parents. According to the Education Ministry, 200,000 students and teachers are quarantining for catching the virus or being exposed to those who have it, and hundreds of kindergartens have been forced to shut. There are another quarter of a million confirmed COVID cases. The number of people hospitalised in serious condition rose to 446. Health Ministry officials believe that the peak of this infection wave will arrive in seven-to-ten days.

Maariv follow yesterday’s decision by the Cabinet to approve a NIS 110 million (£26m) plan to upgrade infrastructure at the Western Wall. The plan aims to encourage more visits to the site by improving public transportation accessibility, developing new educational programme, and continuing existing development projects. However, the plan did not mention to the so-called Western Wall compromise brokered in 2017, which would see the formalisation of a pluralistic prayer pavilion. Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern said: “There is a consensus around the table to support the Western Wall. The question is what is happening with the Israel Plaza [the section of the Western Wall that is supposed to be dedicated to egalitarian prayer services for non-Orthodox denominations].” When pressed by several ministers on this issue, Prime Minister Bennett said: “The current plan addresses the northern, Orthodox plaza. The cabinet secretary is currently working on renovating the southern plaza. That is also [dependent on] permits from the municipality, and we will introduce that separately.”

All the Israeli papers comment on the 11-hour hostage standoff at the Texas synagogue over the weekend. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday and thanked him for the determined and professional action by the law enforcement authorities in his state, which brought the incident to a peaceful conclusion. Bennett told Abbott that the Israeli public anxiously followed the unfolding events and was greatly relieved that the hostage crisis ended without injury. The Prime Minister’s Office added in a statement: “[Bennett] further thanked the governor for his steadfast solidarity with the Jewish community in Colleyville in particular and in Texas as a whole, his support for Israel and his fight against antisemitism and the BDS movement.”

Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel’s national security adviser and head of the National Security Council between 2017 and 2021, writes in Israel Hayom that the government must approve the Citizenship Law that expired last summer. He argues: “The main pillar of the law was security. It was easy to show the relatively high involvement in terror activities of those who had received residency in this way or by their children (the second generation of those who had been given family unification residency permits), in relation to the rest of the Arab population in Israel.”

Channel 12 News reports that Defence Minister Benny Gantz and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke about payments made by the PA to terrorists, and the lawsuits that have been filed against Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Abbas said to Gantz in their meeting three weeks ago: “If there were a peace process, I could stop the wheels of that train. Currently, that is going to be between difficult and impossible to do.” Several Palestinian teams are currently working to collect incriminating evidence against Israel that can be used in lawsuits at the International Criminal Court. According to Palestinian sources, the members of at least one of those teams were recently instructed by Abbas to suspend their activities.