BBC News, The Telegraph, Associated Press and Reuters reports that Iraq has named a new prime minister after four months of protests. Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, a former communications minister, was appointed by President Barham Salih on Sunday. The Times reports that hundreds of anti-government demonstrators in Iraq yesterday rejected the new prime minister-designate, who was recently nominated by rival government factions.

BBC News reports that four Turkish soldiers have been killed and nine wounded in shelling by Syrian government forces in Syria’s north-western Idlib province, Turkey says.

The Financial Times reports the Arab League has unanimously rejected President Trump’s peace plan, as the League’s foreign ministers assert the deal damages the last three decades of peace efforts.

The Financial Times reports that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has cut relations with Israel and the US, in response to proposals by Donald Trump that pave the way for Israel to annex more occupied Palestinian land. The Guardian reports that although the Palestinian Authority has cut ties with the US and Israel over the Trump administration’s plan for Middle East peace, its author has insisted his plan is not dead yet.

The Guardian reports that China’s acting ambassador to Israel has apologised after likening the closures of several national borders to Chinese citizens to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

The Independent reports that a Japanese warship has departed for the Middle East to ensure the safety of the country’s oil tankers in waters where tensions between the US and Iran are high.

The Telegraph reports that at least three Hizbollah fighters have died in recent days in northwest Syria supporting a recent Telegraph report that Iranian and Shia troops were directing military operations in Idlib.

The Times reports that a senior Israeli spy was fired for sending an agent to buy Palestinian tahini. Senior personnel in Unit 504, the department of Israeli military intelligence that controls the country’s spies, had tasked one of its agents with buying jars of Palestinian home-made tahini as a gift for the Israeli army’s chief intelligence officer.  

The Times reports that the European Union fears that the Libyan civil war could propel a second surge of refugees into Europe, according to a leaked report from the bloc’s diplomatic service.

Reuters reports that the head of the European Union’s foreign service, Josep Borrell, will travel to Iran next week to meet the country’s leaders in a bid to reduce tensions in the Middle East, the EU said in a statement on Sunday.

Reuters reports that Lebanon’s new government will look to reduce interest rates and recapitalise banks as part of a broad plan that includes taking “painful” steps to escape a deep financial crisis, according to a draft policy statement seen by Reuters.

In The Guardian, Diana Battu argues that the message of Donald Trump’s Middle East ‘peace plan’ is that international law can be bypassed by great powers at will, indicating only Israeli input has mattered to the administration.

All the Israeli media report Israel’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chaired a meeting yesterday to prepare the country for what is deemed the “unavoidable” appearance of the virus. Netanyahu said that the National Security Council would be coordinating the government response, cutting through bureaucratic delays, and that he had instructed the Biological Institute and Health Ministry to begin researching a vaccine (although most analysts highlighted that it would take months, at least). Kan Radio reported this morning that Israeli hospitals had insufficient capacity to handle a major outbreak, as legal authorities reportedly considered extra measures to force suspected virus carriers to be quarantined. Israel was one of the first countries in the world to block entry – via air, land and sea – to non-citizens who had been in China over the last two weeks.

All the Israeli media report that a gas pipeline in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula was blown up last night by jihadi fighters. Initial reports indicated that the pipeline was part of the newly inaugurated network that exports Israeli natural gas to Egypt, but the Israeli gas consortium denied the reports and said gas from the Leviathan offshore filed was still flowing to Egypt as usual. Egyptian authorities said the pipeline was a local network connected to an electricity power station in central Sinai.

The Israeli media report that Prime Minister Netanyahu will embark on a one-day visit to Uganda today. He will meet with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and other “regional leaders.” Mossad chief Yossi Cohen also joined the delegation, fueling speculation – the details of which were censored by Israel – of a meeting between Netanyahu and another Muslim leader in Kampala. Netanyahu told reporters this morning that he hoped Israel would have some good news by the end of the day.