The BBC reports that British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said, during a visit to the country, that a peace deal in Yemen’s main port city “could be dead within weeks”. The Yemeni government and the rebel Houthi movement have yet to implement a UN-brokered plan to pull out and redeploy forces around Hudaydah. The port is the principal lifeline for two-thirds of Yemen’s population, which is on the brink of famine. Mr Hunt said 80,000 children in the country had already starved to death. More than 20 million people were on the brink of starvation, he added. The UN says at least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the fighting. Hunt, the first Western foreign minister to visit the country since the conflict began, said the two sides were now in the “last chance saloon”. Speaking from the southern port city of Aden, which is under Yemeni government control, he urged them to take the risks necessary to secure peace.

Reuters reports that according to the Israeli military, Palestinians deliberately drove a car into Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank on Monday and two of the attackers were shot dead after critically injuring an officer. Describing the incident as a car-ramming, the military said a third Palestinian in the vehicle was slightly wounded after the troops opened fire. The attack occurred when soldiers stopped their vehicle on the roadside at night about 10 km (six miles) northwest of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the military said. Israeli media reported their car had broken down. Soldiers fired at the Palestinian car after the ramming, killing two of its occupants, a military spokeswoman said. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed their deaths.

In the Financial Times, the newspaper’s editorial board argues that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should “respect the law and step down”. Netanyahu, the article says, insists he is innocent, claiming the allegations against him are part of a leftwing conspiracy “designed to topple the right and bring the left to power”. The Israeli leader’s attacks on the justice system, write the FT, risk polarising society and setting a dangerous precedent. The judiciary has an impressive record of holding power to account. It is a critical pillar of Israel’s democracy, respected by politicians of all shades. The article concludes by saying that, if Netanyahu emerges victorious, Israel will be in uncharted territory. His leadership will be overshadowed by scandal and the nation thrust into political turmoil as what is expected to be a lengthy legal process plays out.

The Times reports that ministers from Israel’s governing party came out fighting last night after it suffered its worst slump in the polls for four years with little more than a month to go until elections. Already facing corruption charges, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister and leader of the Likud party, now has to deal with the results of the poll, which indicates that the coalition of right-wing and religious parties supporting him would no longer have a majority in the Knesset if the election were to be held now. Ofir Akunis, the science minister, said that “the left-wing bloc is achieving a majority in the polls only with the help of the Arab parties. Blue and White are lying to the public. Everyone knows they can’t form a government without the Arabs.” Yuval Steinitz, the energy minister, said that “the Iranians are hoping that Israelis make the mistake of letting Netanyahu lose power. Netanyahu is the only one in the world with the powers to make sure Iran will be paralysed by sanctions.”

In the Times, Anshel Pfeffer asks if Netanyahu can defy the polls and emerge victorious in Israel’s upcoming elections. Pfeffer writes that: “The combination of Bibi-fatigue, a relatively united opposition and the creeping realisation among some of his voters that he has gone too far may be too much even for him to overcome.”

In the Observer, Oliver Holmes asked whether Benny Gantz can defeat Netanyahu in April’s Israeli elections. Despite no political experience and vague policies, the former army chief is a serious election contender, he says.

In the Independent, Bel Trew writes that despite the charges against him, Netanyahu could still win re-election as coalition partners pledge loyalty. The declaration of support from various right-wing parties could save Mr Netanyahu in the 9 April polls, where he will be battling a powerful centrist coalition under the shadow of a looming trial. Speaking to The Independent, a number of party spokespersons said that they would remain loyal to the right-wing leader at least until the pre-trial hearing, which will likely take place after the elections. “Everyone deserves the presumption of innocence,” said a source close to Naftali Bennett, Mr Netanyahu’s Education Minister and a key coalition partner, who recently formed the New Right party. Avigdor Lieberman, Mr Netanyahu’s former defence minister and head of Israel Beytenu, said that only the country’s courts were permitted to rule on whether someone was guilty or not.  “The presumption of innocence is assured for anyone, including the prime minister. Therefore, as far as we’re concerned, Netanyahu can run in the Knesset elections like anyone else,” he said in a statement. United Torah Judaism, Shas and the Union of Right Wing Parties, echoed Mr Lieberman and vowed to back the leader in the elections.

Reuters reports that the US State Department has said that the US consulate in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians, will be absorbed into the new U.S. Embassy to Israel on Monday; a planned merger that has angered Palestinian leadership. The decision to create a single diplomatic mission in Jerusalem was announced last October by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and had been widely expected for early March. The State Department announcement on Sunday gave the official date for the move.

The Guardian and Independent report on Hezbollah. In the Guardian, Martin Chulov writes that: “Censured by Britain, Hezbollah is bigger than ever in Beirut”. Chulov argues that the group has been added to the UK’s terrorist list, but after Assad’s victory in Syria it plays a powerful role in the region. The Independent reports that Hezbollah has condemned the British government for its decision to list it as a terror group, calling it an “insult” to the Lebanese people. Earlier this week, the UK proscribed the Lebanese Shia group’s political wing as a terrorist organisation, after previously distinguishing it from its military branch. Hezbollah said in a statement that the decision was motivated by “servile obedience to the US administration,” and said that “the British government is but a mere follower in service of its American master.” “The British government has insulted the sentiments and the will of the Lebanese people by adopting this decision,” it added.

Reuters reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei advised the government last July not to rely on European efforts to protect Tehran against U.S. sanctions, months after Washington withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed penalties. The release of Khamenei’s speech nine months after his meeting with the cabinet, showed while President Hassan Rouhani was trying to save the nuclear deal with European powers, who remained committed despite the US exit in May 2018, Khamenei was not optimistic about the efforts. The Europeans would naturally say they are protecting Iranian interests with their package “but (the Iranian government) should not make this a main issue,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website on Monday.

The BBC and Financial Times report that Algeria’s veteran President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has defied protesters by confirming he will run again – but says he will not serve a full term. The BBC reports that in a letter, Bouteflika said if he won April’s vote, he would oversee a national dialogue leading to fresh elections that he would not contest. His decision to seek a fifth term in office sparked nationwide protests. Bouteflika, 82, has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013. Sunday saw new protests as a midnight deadline loomed for candidates to register. By nightfall young people were again marching in the capital Algiers despite the president’s offer. Bouteflika’s campaign manager submitted papers on behalf of the ailing president, who is undergoing medical treatment in Switzerland. The electoral commission has said candidates need to submit them in person, but the Constitutional Council ruled that he did not have to be physically present. Should he be re-elected. Mr Bouteflika said he would hold an “inclusive national conference” followed by a vote to determine the next president.

The BBC reports that the Dutch husband of Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State group in Syria in 2015 aged 15, has said he wants her to return to the Netherlands with him. Yago Riedijk and Ms Begum married days after she arrived inside IS territory. Speaking to the BBC, he admitted fighting for the group but says he now wants to return home with his wife and their newborn son. Mr Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention centre in north-eastern Syria. He faces a six-year jail term for joining a terror organisation if he returns to the Netherlands.

The Times reports that the far-right Alternative for Germany, which describes the influx of Middle Easterners into Europe as “knife migration”, appears to have found a refugee of whom it can approve. Kevork Almassian, a Syrian who sought asylum in Germany and who has become a prominent apologist for the Assad regime, has been given a job in the office of one of the party’s most radical MPs — a sign of the strange power constellations that are forming on the fringes of German politics. Almassian, who is in his early thirties, comes from a Christian family in Aleppo. After taking a degree in international relations at the Kalamoon private university near Damascus he moved to Lebanon to continue his studies in 2010. After the outbreak of the Syrian war the following year his father’s business in Aleppo was bombed and his brother was kidnapped. In 2015, after Angela Merkel lifted the controls on Germany’s borders, Almassian flew to a conference in Zurich and then took a bus to Freiburg in the Black Forest. He now plans to apply for a German passport. “I believe in the system and the way of life in Germany,” he told T-Online, a news website. “It suits me.”

In the Guardian, Ruth Michaelson asks whether Sihem Bensedrine, the head of Tunisia’s truth and dignity commission can open a new chapter for human rights in Tunisia. Labelled a “respectable campaigner to some and intriguing opportunist to others” by news outlet Jeune Afrique, Bensedrine was recently blamed for the “failure of transitional justice” by the Tunisian prime minister, Youssef Chahed. “We are working in a very hostile environment,” she said. The truth and dignity commission – the Instance Verité et Dignité (IVD) – was founded in 2013, tasked with exposing decades of human rights abuses from 1955, the last year of French rule, through the brutal regimes of Habib Bourguiba and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and the 2011 Arab spring uprising.

Yediot Ahronoth reports on the Blue and White policy platform that will be announced tomorrow. The manifesto will not propose a unilateral disengagement from territories in the West Bank, and it says there will be no withdrawal from four strategic areas: the settlement blocs, the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Instead of talking about the ‘two-state solution’ and a ‘Palestinian state,’ Blue and White’s platform talks about ‘a regional conference that will advance separation from the Palestinians.’ The platform also proposes to draft legislation that addresses the ‘value of freedom’ as a basic law, separate from the nation-state law or any amendment of it, which will guarantee the rights of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens.

‘We’re in favour of negotiations, but without a unilateral withdrawal or disengagement,’ said sources in the party. ‘This is a centre party that is appealing to the right…Netanyahu calls us left, but after he sees our platform that’s going to shatter in his face. This is a practical platform that [was drafted] with the recognition that there isn’t going to be a peace agreement here tomorrow morning, but with hope for peace with the goal of exhausting all possible existing options.’

Israel Hayom reports on the launch of a new Likud campaign to continue the frontal attack on Gantz. Netanyahu instructed his fellow party members to push just one message, that Gantz is ‘left wing’. He said ‘Some in the right wing buy Gantz and Lapid’s lie, and our job now is to constantly drum into them that they are left wing.’ Likud ministers could be heard saying yesterday, ‘Gantz prefers the Arabs, and that’s why these elections are over Tibi or Bibi.’ Another issue discussed at the meeting was the fact that the growing gap in the polls could pose a problem for President Rivlin, who must assign one of the candidates with the task of forming the government. Netanyahu said that the larger that gap grew, the more likely it is that the president would not ask him. In light of this, one of the issues addressed was siphoning off seats from the right wing parties. Up until now the Likud had been careful not to hurt the right wing parties that are hovering around the electoral threshold, such as Kulanu and Yisrael Beitenu fearing for the wellbeing of the right wing bloc.

Maariv reports that police have stepped up security at the homes of State Attorney Shai Nitzan and Liat Ben Ari, the director of the tax and economic crimes unit. Technological measures will be installed in their homes to protect them because of their work on the cases involving Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Although no explicit threats have been made thus far and no intelligence after consulting with the Justice Ministry, the police decided that preemptive measures should be taken.

Speaking at an event at Haifa University, Nitzan said yesterday: ‘Immediately after the decision was made public, there was fierce criticism from two different and opposite sides. On the one hand, it was said that the attorney general gave the prime minister ‘discounts’ and went easy on him. On the other hand, others said that the attorney general was overly strict with the prime minister. It was also said about the attorney general and the State Attorney’s Office that they were motivated by political considerations. Common to all these allegations, raised by both sides, is that the decisions in these affairs were made for irrelevant considerations. This is groundless. The decisions were made only—and I stress, only—with germane considerations based on the evidence. The question of the political affiliation of the suspect is of no interest to us and is never taken into consideration by us.’

Kan Radio reports a vehicle ramming attack in the Binyamin region, in which one IDF officer sustained serious injuries and a Border Police officer sustained light injuries. The car rammed into a group of IDF personnel that had stopped on the side of the road because of a problem with their vehicle. The soldiers shot at the car and killed two and injured the third.

Israel Hayom reports that the UN Security Council is scheduled to hold an urgent meeting on Wednesday to discuss the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority. It comes in the aftermath of Israel’s implementation of the terrorists’ salaries law, which involved cutting roughly half a billion shekels from the tax funds that Israel levies on behalf of the Palestinians and it resulted in a delay in the transfer of funds. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would pay terrorists and their families today, despite the financial difficulties it now faces. Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, announced yesterday in Ramallah that the Palestinian cabinet had unanimously voted in favour of paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners, shahids and their relatives, notwithstanding the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to deduct those sums from the tax funds. Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said that the sum in question was roughly NIS 30 million. He said: “The issue of the salary payments is at the top of the Palestinian Authority’s set of priorities. The salaries will be deposited in the beneficiaries’ accounts on Sunday or Monday.” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said: “In order to fill despicable terrorists’ pockets, the PA is willing to drag its residents into an economic crisis. The solution to this situation won’t come from discussions at the UN, but only once the PA changes its ways and stops bankrolling salaries to terrorists and disseminating incitement against the State of Israel.”

Haaretz writes that a series of what defence officials call election-driven decisions against the Palestinians could spark violence in the West Bank, especially when combined with the territory’s poor economy, these officials warned the government recently. Among the most important of these was the decision to deduct all the money the Palestinian Authority pays jailed terrorists from the tax revenue Israel collects on the PA’s behalf. Defence officials attribute this decision to rightist parties’ need to woo their bases ahead of April’s election.

Kan Radio quotes Syrian television which reported that the IDF last night fired a mortar shell at the el-Khader region on the Syrian Golan Heights. The official Syrian news agency Sana did not report any injuries.

Kan Radio reports that the US will today close its consulate on Agron Street in Jerusalem and will provide services from its new embassy. The consulate had given services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and to East Jerusalem residents. The State Department spokesperson in Washington said that this did not reflect a change in American policy in these places. The Palestinian Authority yesterday attacked the US for that decision. Saeb Erekat said that the Trump administration was giving the final burial to its role of establishing peace in the region.

Tal Lev Ram in Maariv discusses three goodwill gestures Egypt recently made to Hamas: the Rafah border crossing being kept open for an entire month; 250 Gaza residents left for Mecca via Egypt during a non-holiday period; and the Egyptian authorities released four members of Hamas’s military wing who were arrested four years ago. He also argues that: “Hamas has now chosen to increase the noise. Every night sounds as if a war is being fought all night long at the border fence. Every day sappers and Engineering Corps troops detonate the explosives that were hurled at the border fence and the troops. In response to Hamas’s decision to escalate, Israel has once again tried to recalibrate its reactions, and has reverted to attacking Hamas positions and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.” Kan Radio reports that an IDF aircraft attacked a Hamas position in the Gaza Strip last night in response to explosive charges that were thrown at the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip.