The BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Sky News and Reuters report on Israel’s deportation of a Palestinian-French human rights lawyer to France after accusing him of security threats. Salah Hammouri, 37, was escorted onto a flight to France by police early on Sunday morning, the Israeli interior ministry said. A lifelong resident of Jerusalem, he was stripped of his residency rights after officials accused him of being a member of a terrorist organisation. Mr Hammouri denies the charges and rights groups have condemned the move. The French foreign ministry also expressed disappointment at the decision, and said it condemned “the Israeli authorities’ decision, against the law, to expel Salah Hammouri to France”.

The Financial Times reports on Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power, saying “secular and liberal Israelis are horrified by the anti-Arab, homophobic and sexist rhetoric of some of its key figures, as well as plans to dismantle judicial checks and balances. They fear this government could have far-reaching implications for Israel’s democratic institutions; for its civil society; and for Palestinians — in Israel and in the Palestinian territories that Israel has occupied since 1967.”

On Iran, the BBC reports that Iranian authorities have arrested one of the country’s best known actresses, after she expressed solidarity with anti-government demonstrators. Taraneh Alidoosti was detained on charges of “spreading falsehoods” about the protest movement that has gripped the country, state media said. In an Instagram post last week, she condemned the execution of a man over his involvement with the protests. Ms Alidoosti is best known for her role in the Oscar-winning film The Salesman.

The Independent reports that Baghdad-mediated diplomatic talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia have come to a halt. Iraqi officials say it is largely because of Iranian claims that the Sunni kingdom has played a role in alleged foreign incitement of the mass anti-government protests underway in Iran. The talks had been lauded as a breakthrough that would ease regional tensions. Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said last month after taking office that Iraq had been asked to continue facilitating the dialogue.

Reuters says that while the US has tried and failed to negotiate a revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Washington and its European allies refuse to close the door to diplomacy. Their reasons reflect the danger of alternative approaches, the unpredictable consequences of a military strike on Iran, and the belief that there is still time to alter Tehran’s course: even if it is inching toward making fissile material it is not there yet, nor has it mastered the technology to build a bomb, according to officials.

There is wide Israeli media coverage of Saturday’s New York Times editorial expressing concern over the threats to Israeli democracy posed by the incoming government, and hope that the Biden Administration will do all in its power to prevent such threats becoming reality. “While Mr. Netanyahu clearly has the support of the Israeli electorate,” wrote the paper, “his coalition’s victory was narrow and cannot be seen as a broad mandate to make concessions to ultrareligious and ultranationalist parties that are putting the ideal of a democratic Jewish state in jeopardy.”

Prime Minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the editorial on Twitter,  accusing the New York Times of “burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonising Israel for decades”. He continued: “While the NYT continues to delegitimise the one true democracy in the Middle East and America’s best ally in the region, I will continue to ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country, strengthening ties with America, expanding peace with our neighbours, and securing the future of the one and only Jewish state.”

Maariv covers the story that security at incoming National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Kiryat Arba home has been increased following further threats to his life from the West Bank terrorist group Lion’s Den. In a statement referring to the Jewish Power leader’s controversial commitment to Jewish prayer on Temple Mount, Lion’s Den said: “Ben Gvir and his band of criminals have decided to storm our mosque as of tomorrow over the course of eight days, so we will turn them into days of resistance and fire against the occupation and its settlers. We call on our people to go tomorrow to al-Aqsa Mosque.” The GSS has previously foiled a Hamas cell intent on assassinating Ben Gvir, who said: “Threats to my life never have and never will deter me from doing what I believe in on behalf of the Israeli people and the State of Israel. The people making the threats need to be caught and imprisoned for many years. The time has come for sovereignty, governance and full security for all citizens of Israel.”

Israel Hayom focusses in-depth on proposed changes to UNRWA, the United Nations body with exclusive oversight over Palestinian refugees. Currently funded by money provided by donor nations, a Palestinian proposal would instead see this replaced by direct UN funding. This follows complaints and reductions in funding by donors over alleged terrorist incitement propagated in UNRWA schools and of other connections between their funding and terrorist activity. For example, the agency recently reported finding a terror tunnel in one its Gazan schools, which led to public criticism by senior European Union official Oliver Várhelyi. Israeli officials fear that a move to centralise UN funding of the agency would prove irreversible and decrease the kind of transparency through which such terrorist connections are eventually exposed. The US remains the largest funder of UNRWA, following President Biden’s reversal of former President Trump’s 2018 decision to cease US funding.

Haaretz’s editorial is deeply critical of outgoing Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s decision to deport Salah Hammouri. “Such a proceeding is not a fair one”, it says. “The combination of vague and highly broad substantive grounds and an inferior process transforms the expulsion at the end of the road into an arbitrary act – a draconian tool in the interior minister’s hands. It’s a fitting final note for the term of Shaked, who has consistently demonstrated an inhumane approach to asylum seekers and other non-Jews.” Hammouri was previously convicted of planning a terror attack on late Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in 2005 and served seven years in prison before his release as part of a prisoner exchange which saw the return of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Maariv reports on Likud MK Eliyahu Revivo’s introduction of the so-called “Flag Bill”, criminalising the public displaying of “enemy” flags in Israel. Revivo remarked: “It is unthinkable that our enemies and their supporters should raise the flags of people who wish to murder us and our children. We are in favor of freedom of speech, but between support for the enemy and for terrorism and freedom of speech, there is no connection.”

Ynet carries the story of the drowning of eight Gazans, including children, when their migrant ship sank off the coast of Tunisia. The ship sank not long after its departure from Libya.

Kan Radio reports shots fired at a bus in the West Bank near the former settlement of Sa-Nur, razed as part of the Disengagement of 2005. Security forces had given permission for a candle-lighting celebration to mark the start of Hanukkah. The station also confirms that the IDF has announced plans to demolish the home of Muhammad Jaabari, the killer of Ronen Hanania in an attack in Hebron a month and a half ago. 35-year-old Jaabari was himself killed during the incident and his family has the right to appeal the demolition order.

I24 News reports the arrest of Nasser Nakiv, 47, and his son, both residents of the Askar refugee camp in Nablus, as suspects in Friday’s non-fatal shooting attack near the Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad in the northern West Bank.

Army Radio reveals that on taking the stand this morning as a witness in Netanyahu’s ongoing trial, former chairperson of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council Yifat Ben Hai Segev alleged that social and traditional media were being used in an effort to intimidate her and prevent her telling the truth.

Maariv reports on the injuries sustained by a mother of eleven, Mirel Dzalovski, hit by a dumpster during a riot carried out by Haredim in the Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem late last week. The rioters were protesting the arrests on suspicion of arson of two members of their community. They were condemned both by Prime Minister designate Netanyahu and Yitzhak Goldknopf, chair of the Haredi United Torah Judaism party. In a statement, police said: “These riots have nothing to do with legitimate protest. Vandalizing, arson, throwing rocks, blocking roads, hurling dumpsters down the street, those are not means of protest in a civilized society.” Yediot Ahronot devotes a story to the reactions of Mea Shearim residents to the events, quoting one as saying: “Everyone is now making a fuss about how this woman was injured, but if you ask any average Haredi, they will tell you that it has been very frightening to walk around here for the last few years.”