The BBC has filed an urgent complaint to the UN over what it says is Iran’s ongoing harassment of journalists at its Persian service and their families. It comes amid escalating security concerns, after a year in which Iran has been accused of conducting unlawful operations against journalists abroad. BBC World Service Director Liliane Landor said staff faced asset freezes, online harassment and death threats.

The Times and Independent report that the interim prime minister of Libya survived an assassination attempt on Thursday just before rival factions in the country’s divided politics staged a vote to oust him. Local television channels showed bullet holes in the car that had been carrying Abdulhamid Dabaiba in the capital, Tripoli, shortly after midnight. Dabaiba has been under increasing political pressure since he failed to go through with promised elections in December, which had been negotiated among all Libya’s factions to end a seven-year civil war.

The Guardian and Independent note that Libya’s political turmoil is set to worsen after its eastern-based parliament appointed a new prime minister and the interim incumbent refused to step aside.

Reuters reports that the US will help the UAE replenish interceptors it uses to knock down incoming missiles following a spate of unprecedented attacks by Houthi fighters in Yemen

The Financial Times writes about the Pegasus and Israel Police drama that has dominated the headlines in Israel this week. The allegations mark the first time the flagship product of Israel’s NSO Group has become embroiled in a domestic scandal, and the first time the weapon’s use — and abuse — is being debated by Israeli society.

The Telegraph follows the Duke of Cambridge’s first trip to the UAE. The Duke planted mangroves with children at the Jubail Mangrove Park, a specialist nature reserve in the heart of the desert. He told students from the British School Al Khubairat: “You are the future. Keep up the good work.” He was joined for the visit by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the son of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince.

The Independent reports that Iran has unveiled a new long-range missile that can reach Israel. The weapon is named after a seventh-century battle that saw Muslim warriors overrun a Jewish castle in the early days of Islam.

The Guardian reports that a new parliamentary study has shown there is “compelling evidence” that British women and children currently detained in camps in north-east Syria were trafficked to the country against their will. After a six-month inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on trafficked Britons in Syria, the findings published on Thursday highlights how systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled Islamic State trafficking of vulnerable women and children as young as 12.

In the Israeli media, the drama over the alleged illegal use of the NSO Pegasus spyware by the Israel Police has abated after no proof has yet been found of widespread use. Kan Radio cites a law enforcement official who said that thus far no evidence had been found to support the allegation, except for Shlomo Filber, a state’s witness in the Netanyahu trial against whom the police admitted to making pinpointed use of the software. The inquiry team led by Deputy Attorney General Amit Merari might submit its conclusions to Prime Minister Bennett as early as today. Maariv reports that the NSO Group, the developer of the Pegasus spyware, yesterday sent a warning letter before taking legal action to the Calcalist newspaper over its “false reports”. It quotes a senior police officer who told the newspaper: “The public must regain confidence in the police and stop believing all sorts of self-interested parties whose goal is to undermine the integrity of the largest law enforcement agency.” While Calcalist alleged that the police made cynical, hurtful use of the spyware without a court order, the police insisted that any use of it had received approval from the attorney general with a court order signed by the vice president of a district court, as required by law.

Israel Hayom cites an unnamed Western diplomat who said Israeli opposition to a return by the world powers to the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran essentially means Israeli acceptance of Iran as a nuclear threshold state. For many months Iran has been enriching uranium to a level of 60 per cent, a level that is higher than needed for civilian purposes. Letting this situation continue, while advanced centrifuges continue to operate, shortens breakout time to full enrichment to only a few weeks. The Western diplomat added that freezing the current situation would be a precedent for Israel and would go beyond the red line that Netanyahu set in his famous 2012 speech to the UN. Netanyahu said then that a red line must be set before Iran completes the second phase of nuclear enrichment that will be enough to build a bomb, before it reaches the point that it is months or weeks away from having a quantity of enriched uranium to produce nuclear weapons.

All the papers report on the government’s new financial relief programme to battle the high cost of living. Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday briefed reporters on the NIS 4.4bn (£1bn) programme, with a focus on tax benefits for working families. The programme calls for tax benefits for working families, increasing the subsidy for after-school activities, increasing grants for low-salary workers, lowering the electricity fee and more. Lieberman commented on the criticism: “You can’t please everyone. I don’t hand out checks. We said what can be given and that is what we can give. We will resolve some of the problems, working families are my first priority.”

In Yediot Ahronot, Sima Kadmon writes that Prime Minister Bennett viewed the public protest against price hikes as an opportunity to lower taxes and to create competition. She writes: “The plan that was presented at a press conference on Wednesday, which has since elicited criticism from the right and the left, was basically capitalising on an opportunity. Some will say that that’s how it looks too. Like something that was hastily put together that fails to address the public’s real needs, and certainly doesn’t fight the cost of living.”

The Jerusalem Post follows reports in Turkey that claim Turkish and Israeli intelligence forces came together to foil an assassination attempt of Israeli businessman Yair Geller. The alleged assassination attempt, which in this case included a team of nine, is in response to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, which Iran has attributed to Israel.

Kan Radio reports that the Prisons Service has changed the protocol for incarcerating security prisoners in wake of the breakout from Gilboa Prison five months ago. From now on prisoners who are considered high flight risks will not be housed in the same cell. It was also decided that prisoners who are feared to be likely to attempt to escape will be transferred to a different cell every four months instead of every six months and will not be allowed to stay in cells where they were housed previously.

Yediot Ahronot reports that talks between Pfizer and health officials in Israel were held in the last few weeks to begin a new trial for a vaccine adapted to the Omicron variant.  The details have still not been finalised, but it is likely that Sheba Hospital workers will take part in it, as they did in a past trials. Doses of the Omicron vaccine are due to arrive in Israel in the next few days or weeks. There are 1,111 COVID patients in serious condition, over 260 of whom are on ventilators. Approximately 1,140 Israelis have died of COVID since the year began, and around 9,400 people in Israel have died since the pandemic started.