The Guardian, Sky News, The Independent and The Times report that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s temporary release from Evin prison in Tehran has been extended by a minimum of a month as Iran continues to battle its coronavirus outbreak. The Telegraph reports Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family said she was “very relieved” as her lawyer was told on Tuesday that her furlough would be extended until 20 May. 

The Associated Press reports that a Palestinian attacker was shot and killed on Wednesday after he rammed his vehicle into an Israeli checkpoint and stabbed a police officer there, Israeli police said.

Reuters reports that Gulf debt and equity markets fell on Tuesday and the Saudi currency dropped in the forward market, after US crude oil futures collapsed below $0 on a coronavirus-induced supply glut. The Financial Times reports that Middle Eastern oil producers were already struggling with lacklustre economic growth before the coronavirus crisis hit, making it difficult for these states to make cuts to public spending and re-work their budgets.

The Associated Press and The Telegraph reports that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a military satellite into orbit today, amid wider tensions with the US – a successful launch after months of failures.

Reuters reports that Iran and Russia should increase their cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak and continue trade, President Hassan Rouhani told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Iranian presidency website said.

Reuters reports that dozens of protesters poured back onto the streets of Beirut in their cars on Tuesday, furious at rising poverty and hardship, as parliament convened for the first time during Lebanon’s coronavirus lockdown.

Reuters reports that the coronavirus outbreak in Turkey is starting to reach a plateau and the country aims to return to normal life after the end of Ramadan in late May, President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying by state-owned Anadolu News Agency on Tuesday.

In the Financial Times, Mehul Srivastava assesses how Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to secure his political survival by entering a national unity government, which has delivered Israel’s prime minister a record fifth term.

In The Times, Richard Spencer profiles the return to the UK of Abdel-Majed Abdel-Bary, the UK citizen who became known as ‘Jihadi John’ after travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS. Bary was recently arrested on Monday in southern Spain.

All the Israeli media report on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claim that it has successfully launched a military satellite into orbit after months of failures. There has been no independent confirmation of the launch of the satellite, and no comment from US officials. Haaretz notes that according to the IRGC, the satellite successfully reached an orbit of 425 kilometres (264 miles) above the Earth’s surface. According to the IRGC, this is the first military satellite ever launched by Iran. The two-stage satellite launch took off from Iran’s Central Desert. It used a Ghased, or “messenger,” satellite carrier to put the device into space, a previously unheard-of system.

The Israeli media also report on an attack this morning at a checkpoint close to Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank. A Border Police officer was moderately injured when an assailant first rammed his car into the officer, then got out of the vehicle and attacked him with a knife before other troops at the scene shot and neutralised the attacker. Following the attack, police found a pipe bomb at the scene, which requiring closing off the area until bomb disposal experts removed the device. In a separate incident in the West Bank, Kan Radio News reports that Border Police and Civil Administration officials are demolishing six structures that were built illegally in the Kumi Ori and Tekuma settlement outposts in the Yitzhar area. Three of the structures in question served as residences for families. One resident has been arrested in the operation. Yitzhar residents described the demolition work as a governmental price tag operation that it is carrying out during the coronavirus crisis. They added that one of the people evicted prior to demolition was a woman who is eight-months pregnant.

The Jerusalem Post reports that MK Mansour Abbas, head of the religious Ram – United Arab List faction within the Joint List, eulogised the victims of the Holocaust in a speech to the Knesset yesterday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the first Arab MK to do so. Abbas said that he was uttering a prayer from the Quran in memory of the souls of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Abbas said: “As a religious Palestinian Muslim Arab, who was raised on the legacy of Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish who founded the Islamic Movement, I have empathy to the pain and suffering over the years of Holocaust survivors and the families of the murdered. I stand here to show solidarity with the Jewish people here and forever… I bow my head before the heroism of women and men who started the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the decree of death and the feeling of despair to protect the human image… Holocaust denial is a remnant of Nazi ideology. It is a moral failure and its betrayal of the values of truth and justice is a transgression of a fundamental principle in Islam, the testimony of truth and justice.”