RAMALLAH, Monday, December 23, 2019 (WAFA) – The Israeli response to the International Criminal Court’s announcement that there is enough evidence to investigate Israeli war crimes against Palestinians dominated the front page headlines in Monday’s issue of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies.

Al-Ayyam reported that Israel remains tight-lipped about the means that it would adopt to confront the ICC.

It also reported Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that the ICC has become a weapon in the war against Israel.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said in this regard that Netanyahu imposes confidentiality on the deliberations on how to deal with the ICC.

Al-Quds added that this issue along with recent provocation against the Palestine’s accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) were discussed by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee.

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted Israeli military raids across the occupied West Bank.

They elaborated that several Palestinians were injured from Israeli military gunfire during a raid that triggered confrontations in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, and the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

They added that Israeli settlers set up a menorah at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and barged their way to Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

According to al-Quds, an Israeli settler seized Palestinian land in the northern Jordan Valley.

Chairman of the Qatari Committee for Gaza Reconstruction Mohammad al-Emadi was reported in al-Quds announcing that that committee would start to hand out Qatari grants to Gaza impoverished families.

Al-Quds highlighted media reports that Israel handed over 200 Palestinian children to foster families in Europe between 1970s and 1990s.

It added that this was slammed by Palestinians as an “act of kidnapping and trafficking” and spotlighted calls to open an inquiry into the case.

According to al-Quds, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III received the representative of Jordan’s King Abdullah II State Minister for Prime Ministry’s Affairs Sami al-Dawwod for Christmas.

According to the dailies, President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the credentials of Kuwait’s non-resident ambassador to Palestine Aziz al-Dihani.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that Israel allows Gaza Christians to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, reversing an earlier ban.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said that the United Nations (UN) is anticipated to publish the blacklist of companies operating in the Israeli colonial settlements in January 2020.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Ahmad Zahran, a Palestinian prisoner who has been hunger striking for 91 consecutive days in protest of administrative detention in Israeli jails, was interrogated.

It said that the Hamas-run security forces continued to arrest Gaza activists purportedly for opposing the construction of the US-funded field hospital in the northern besieged Gaza Strip.

Regionally, al-Quds reported US officials revealing that the popular new chat application, ToTok, is in fact a UAE spy tool.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Malaysia welcomes the ICC decision to open an investigation into Israeli war crimes against Palestinians, and stresses that Israel must be held accountable for its crimes.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida and al-Ayyam highlighted the Jordanian House of Representatives’ plan to draft a bill to cancel the import of Israeli gas to Jordan.

K.F.