RAMALLAH, June 21, 2018 (WAFA) – The volatile situation and tensions in the besieged Gaza Strip dominated the front page headlines in Palestinian local dailies on Thursday.

Al-Quds reported that Israel is prepared to resume assassinations and carry out a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip.

It added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ‘Defense‘ Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Israeli military Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot have threatened to escalate the situation and react violently to the kites flown by Gaza protestors.

Al-Ayyam reported that Israeli military is getting prepared to launch a large-scale aggression against Gaza as Israeli leaders announce their preparedness to all scenarios.

It added that Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes in Gaza as Palestinian factions targeted Israeli locations in Gaza periphery.

In the aftermath of the over 25 raids carried out by Israeli warplanes against locations in Gaza, al-Quds reported Palestinian factions in Gaza announcing: “The equation will be: bombardment in return for bombardment.”

Furthermore, the dailies said that a Palestinian young man succumbed to his wounds he had sustained after being shot and injured by Israeli military gunfire a month ago during Gaza protests.

The man, identified as Muhammad Abu Daqqa, 22, who was injured by Israeli gunfire on May 14, succumbed to his wounds at St. Joseph Hospital in Jerusalem.

Additionally, al-Quds reported that Israeli forces carried out detention raids and demolished Palestinian structures across the West Bank.

Al-Ayyam said in this regard that Israeli occupation authorities demolished several Palestinian structures and delivered demolition notices for other structures in the West Bank.

Elaborating on demolitions and detention raids, al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Israeli occupation authorities demolished a Palestinian home in Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, and detained a total of 22 Palestinians in West Bank raids.

Yet, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported that Israeli settlers set up a new settlement outpost on lands belonging to Bani Naim town, east of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

They added that the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed in preliminary reading a draft law criminalizing the filming of Israeli soldiers aimed to document the violations they commit against Palestinians.

Responding to the critical financial crisis gripping the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, al-Quds reported US Department of State claiming that the urgent calls made by UNRWA to evade a possible humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza were routine and periodic.

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported Palestinian Premier Rami Hamdallah urged the international community to uphold financial promises to UNRWA.

Hamdallah reportedly made his statement during a meeting with UNRWA General Commissioner Pierre Krähenbühl in Ramallah.

The withdrawal of the US from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was also featured as a main news item in the front page of the dailies.

Al-Quds reported Human Rights Watch criticizing the US move: “All Trump seems to care about is defending Israel.”

It also reported the Palestinian Information Ministry slamming the US move as a “reward to the Israeli occupation” and Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee Saeb Erekat stating that Washington was complicit in Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

Al-Ayyam said that the US move drew broad criticism from the international community, while al-Hayat al-Jadida decried it as signaling another position against an international body, the United Nations.

Moreover, al-Quds and al-Ayyam highlighted the meeting between US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special advisor Jared Kushner and the US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt on the one hand and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) in Riyadh.

Al-Quds elaborated that MBS discussed with Kushner and Greenblatt the situation in the Gaza Strip and proposals to launch Trump’s plan for Israel and the Palestinians, dubbed the “deal of the century”.

Al-Quds reported that Israeli right-wing activists chanted: “Where is Ali? Ali’s on the grill” to celebrate the murder of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, who was burned to death when Israeli settlers torched his family home in July 2015.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that the Dawabsheh family, who lost three members in the 2015 arson attack by Israeli settlers in the Nablus-district town of Duma, saying that they would prosecute the murderers in international courts.

This came after an Israeli court struck down some of the confessions made by two settlers involved in the murder of the Dawabsheh family.

According to al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, thousands of Palestinian refugees across Lebanon rallied in support of President Mahmoud Abbas in Beirut.

K.F./M.K.