The BBC reports that US President Joe Biden will meet Palestinian leaders in the West Bank today before he flies to a controversial summit in Saudi Arabia. His meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is likely to be strained, analysts say, after ties hit a low under the Trump administration. Later, Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet its de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The BBC’s US correspondent Barbara Plett Usher explains why President Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia is controversial on the US.

The Times also follows President Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia. “Whatever his personal misgivings, the US president will be all smiles when he jets into the kingdom he branded a pariah just two years ago,” writes Richard Spencer.

The Telegraph and Financial Times report that on his first Middle East trip as president, Joe Biden said “the only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons”. He also pledged to use military force “as a last resort” if it meant stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, during an interview with Israeli media shortly before departing for the region.

President Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, according to the Guardian, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour. During a news conference yesterday in Israel, the President refused to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince later today.

Reuters note that President Biden will not come with a plan to restart the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace process when he visits the West Bank today, a senior administration official said.

A Swedish court has found a former Iranian official guilty of war crimes in connection with the mass executions of political prisoners in Iran in 1988, reports the Independent and BBC. Hamid Nouri was sentenced to life in prison for what prosecutors said was his leading role in the killing of large numbers of opposition supporters. His lawyer said he would appeal, while Iran called the verdict “political”.

The US House of Representatives yesterday approved legislation that would create a new hurdle for President Biden’s plan to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, according to Reuters. The House approved the measure, offered by Democratic Representatives Frank Pallone and Chris Pappas, as an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, by 244 to 179. It is the latest effort by members of Congress to exert control over the sale of the Lockheed Martin aircraft to NATO ally Turkey.

In the Israeli media, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has informed Defence Minister Benny Gantz that a new IDF chief of staff can be appointed even during the run-up to elections. The attorney general issued a statement saying that she had made the decision after reading the confidential security professional opinions that she had been provided and after having consulted with all of the relevant professionals in the Attorney General’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office. Gantz has been seeking to appoint a successor to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi — whose four-year term is set to expire in January — despite the fact that new elections were called last month. Governments have traditionally avoided nominating senior positions in the military whilst in an election period. Recently Likud MKs protested such a ruling, threatening to remove Baharav-Miara if they return to government.

Maariv publishes a new poll which found that if elections were held today, the merger between Blue and White and New Hope would have no effect and the Netanyahu bloc would still gain 61 seats, as it did in last week’s Maariv poll. The Likud would win 36 seats, followed by Yesh Atid on 24, Blue & White-New Hope on 13, Religious Zionist Party on 10, Shas on 8, UTJ on 7, Labour Party on 6, Arab Joint List on 6, Yisrael Beiteinu on 6, and the United Arab List on 4. Yamina and Meretz failed to pass the electoral threshold. However, the poll also found that if Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser (former members of New Hope) were to join Yamina, Yamina would cross the electoral threshold and have four seats, making it impossible for Netanyahu to form a government without it.

Meanwhile, Kan Radio notes that Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan will not run in the Likud’s internal election. Officials in Erdan’s office said that he would muster his experience and abilities to defend the State of Israel and its positions in the international arena. New Hope Chairman Gideon Saar met yesterday with former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot and proposed that he join the merged Blue and White-New Hope party.

Israel’s National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata became the first senior Israeli official to publicly confirm Israeli operations within Iranian territory in 2022. According to an interview with Channel 13 New last night, Hulata said, “We have acted not infrequently over the last year … in Iran,” in response to a series of questions about whether Jerusalem would act against Tehran directly even in the face of pressure from the US not to rock the boat too much while nuclear negotiations are ongoing.

Most of the papers publish commentary pieces on US President Biden’s visit to Israel. Commenting on the security-related results of the visit in Yediot Ahronot, Yossi Yehoshua writes this morning that it was a “missed opportunity”. He states: “The visit did not yield the anticipated news about the important Iranian matter, not even about the urgent issue of the dispute with Lebanon over the exclusive economic zone, which is liable to spill over into a military clash … [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah is seriously threatening war if a solution is not found, and not a word about it was said. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that the only thing that would stop Iran was a credible military threat. Officials in the IDF Intelligence Branch, for example, think that a nuclear agreement can be accepted as a less bad option if improvements are introduced — to its sunset clause, for example — which would give the military time it needs to build a credible military option. It turns out that neither of these were achieved.”