RAMALLAH, Monday, December 30, 2019 (WAFA) – According to the main front-page story in today’s al-Quds newspaper, Israel will soon ease its 13-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip as reports of progress in calm talks between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip since 2007. At the same time, Israel intends to tighten its grip on the West Bank with an expected decision to add more than 2000 new housing units to its illegal settlements in the occupied territory, according to the main front page story in al-Ayyam daily.
The main front-page headline in the third Arabic daily, al-Hayat al-Jadida, highlighted remarks by President Mahmoud Abbas at the opening of Fatah Consultative Council meeting in Ramallah last night in which he said that there will be no elections without East Jerusalem being part and parcel of it.
He also said that he is going to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people, as came in the headline of the stories on this topic in the three dailies.
Al-Ayyam quoted ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda saying the investigation into Israeli crimes its office is going to initiate has not started yet and that no charges have yet been levied against Israelis or Palestinians yet.
The three papers also reported on the Israeli cabinet decision to seize more than $40 million of the Palestinian tax revenues, which some officials described as “theft,” as reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida in a large front-page headline that said: “Israel besieges the President and the leadership, and eases restrictions on Hamas as part of the deal of the century.”
The same paper also highlighted charges by Fatah attacking Hamas for claiming that it has arrested a cell in Gaza involved in the Israeli assassination of a top Islamic Jihad leader, with Fatah describing these claims as a “failed attempt to cover up the agreements it (Hamas) is concluding with the (Israeli) occupation.”
The three papers also reported on the decision of the Arab banks in the West Bank to buy the debt of the Jerusalem District Electricity Company to the Israel Electricity Company, a step that should end the Israeli company’s punitive measures against the Palestinian company and its hundreds of thousands of customers who suffered several hours of forced blackout over the last two months.
Al-Ayyam reported on the health of Archbishop Atallah Hanna, who is believed to have been poisoned by Israel earlier this month and had to be treated in Jordanian and German hospitals.
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