The BBC reports that nearly 1,500 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebels died in fighting in 2020, and hundreds more the following year. In a report to the UN Security Council, experts said rebels were still recruiting children, using summer camps and a mosque to spread their ideology. They added that air strikes on the rebels by Saudi-led forces were still inflicting many civilian casualties.
 
The Telegraph quotes Israeli government officials over Amnesty International’s forthcoming report which will claim that Palestinians live under apartheid. Lior Haiat, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, branded the report a “collection of lies” which sought to “deny the right of existence of the state of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. This is a double standard, demonising Israel in order to delegitimise the existence of the state of Israel. Those are the components of modern anti-semitism,” he said. In a statement to the Telegraph, Amnesty stood by its report and said it was a critique of “the Israeli government, not the Israeli or Jewish people”.
 
Reuters and Sky News report the UAE said on Monday it had intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement as the country hosted Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in his first official visit to the Gulf business and tourism hub.
 
The Times notes that a leading German dictionary has prompted heated debate about the word “Jew” by updating its definition to suggest that the term can be “felt to be discriminatory” because of the way it was once used in Nazi propaganda. The online edition of Duden, one of the standard reference works for the German language, now suggests using alternative phrases such as “Jewish fellow citizens” or “people of Jewish faith” to be sure of not causing offence.
 
Zoe Strimpel writes in The Telegraph that ‘The BBC must confront its long-held prejudices towards Jews’. Strimpel says: “The BBC’s problem with Jews goes back several generations, and, as with Corbyn’s Labour, the reason lies in the slow but sure percolation of the most toxic parts of left-wing culture of the 1970s. Only when the BBC confronts its anti-Israel bias will it find that it makes fewer slips in its handling of Jews.”    
 
Sylvan Adams, co-owner of the Israel Start-Up Nation pro cycling team, is the latest to critique Jonathan Liew’s piece in The Guardian which argued that sports projects in Israel as “sportswashing”. Adams writes instead that his sports initiatives look to build bonds of coexistence and understanding.
 
An investigation by Gina Gambetta in the Independent has revealed that between 2016 and 2021, the UK was more likely to pay compensation to innocent civilians in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan for a road collision than for destroying their homes.
 
In the Israeli media, Yediot Ahronot and Israel Hayom report that the search committee for the next attorney general has submitted the names of three candidates to Justice Minister Gideon Saar. The candidates are Gali Baharav-Miara, Dr. Roi Sheindorf, and Itai Ofir. Surprisingly, the deputy attorney general, Raz Nizri, was not on the list. It is believed that Saar will submit to the cabinet for approval the candidate whom he promoted, Gali Baharav-Miara. Baharav-Miara made her career in the State Attorney’s Office, and most recently served as the Tel Aviv District Attorney for civilian affairs. She resigned from the State Attorney’s Office a few years ago and has since worked as an attorney in the private sector. 
 
Maariv leads with the headline, ‘Reproduction Number is Under One’ for the first time in Israel since the fifth wave of the Omircon variant begun. On Saturday, almost 50,000 people tested positive for Covid, of whom 1,092 people are hospitalised in serious condition. The Health Ministry is concerned about a new subvariant, BA.2, which appears to be more contagious than the Omicron variant but does not cause more serious illness. So far, about 240 carriers of the new subvariant have been discovered in Israel. In Denmark and the UK, the incidence of new subvariant has increased, stopping the trend of infection slowing.
 
Commenting on President Isaac Herzog’s visit to the UAE, Ravid Barak writes in Walla: “Herzog’s visit shows that from the Emiratis’ perspective, the Abraham Accords are here to stay. The visit indicates that the accords were not the product of either transitory interests or a confluence of temporary political circumstances of one kind or another but, rather, reflected a strategic decision that was made by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the acting leader of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed. That message will continue to reverberate during visits by additional senior Israeli political officials.” Referring to yesterday’s ballistic missile strike on the UAE, Barak says it is “hard, for example, to envision Israel supplying the Emiratis with the Iron Dome system. There are other, less sensitive technologies that Israel might supply to the Emiratis. Senior Israeli officials recognise that this is an opportunity to strengthen relations with the UAE dramatically and that it behooves Israel to enlist to help the Emiratis”.

In Maariv, MK Ruth Wasserman Lande and Yosef Abramowitz explain how President Herzog’s visit is a precedent for cooperation between Israel and countries of the region in the areas of energy and electricity. ” This is an opportunity filled with unprecedented economic and geopolitical opportunities for Israel. Connecting Israel to solar energy fields in the Persian Gulf’s deserts would lower the cost of electricity in Israel by some 50%. A development of that kind would facilitate the development of thousands of megawatts of solar-produced electricity in the Negev, which could serve as a means for economic mobility for the residents of the Negev as a whole and for Bedouin society in particular.”
 
Jerusalem Post reports that Syria army said Israel conducted an airstrike last night. The Syrian army claimed that Israel Air Force planes fired missiles from Lebanese airspace at targets near Damascus. A series of cargo flights on airlines used to transport Iranian weapons travelled between Iran and Syria in recent weeks, according to independent flight trackers. The Syrian air defence systems successfully intercepted some of the missiles, adding that others that it had failed to intercept hadn’t caused damage. The last air strike on Syria attributed to Israel was a month and a half ago.
 
Israel Hayom notes that sources close to Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu have begun to talk about moving up the date for a Likud primary. Likud Central Committee Chairman Haim Katz tells Israel Hayom that no one has discussed that option with him yet. He said that a party primary would only be held either in the event that the current government were to fall or six months prior the scheduled dissolution of the Knesset. Reports emerged a few months ago of Netanyahu wanting to hold a primary so as to shore up his status following the Likud’s fall from power, but he encountered resistance from several prominent Likud MKs.
 
Matti Tuchfeld writes in Israel Hayom: “The festivities that were put on by several top Likud members when it had appeared as if a plea bargain agreement was about to be signed and that Netanyahu would vacate his place, should give Netanyahu cause for concern. The fact that they couldn’t restrain themselves for even a single second and that each of them tried to jockey for position even before the starting pistol had been fired, showed Netanyahu that he can count on the members of the Haredi parties more than he can count on the members of his own party. Obviously, from a political aspect, and to shore up his leadership, he must hold the election soon and send the mice back to their holes.”