RAMALLAH, Tuesday, December 31, 2019 (WAFA) – Palestinian officials’ statements responding to Israel’s cut from the Palestinian tax revenues dominated the front page headlines in Tuesday’s issue of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies.
Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh was reported that Israel’s decision to withhold additional funds from the Palestinian tax revenues “brings us back to square one of the crisis”.
He was also reported in al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida slamming the ‘facilities’ Israel intends to grant Gaza as intended to consolidate the intra-Palestinian division, separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and undermine the Palestinian national project.
The Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry was reported in al-Quds slamming Israel’s cut from the tax revenues as “an act of piracy” and “organized state terrorism”.
Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted Palestinian official condemnations of Hamas’ recent allegations that the Palestinian Intelligence service helped Israel assassinate Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.
Al-Ayyam reported Palestinian Authority’s officials slamming Hamas’ accusations against the Intelligence service as an attempt to cover up the understandings it has reached with Israel.
Shtayyeh was reported in this regard stating that the Palestinian Authority’s security services’s doctrine distinguishes the friend from the foe and slamming Hamas’ accusations as “false”.
Secretary-General of the PLO’s Executive Committee Saeb Erekat was reported in this regard slamming Hamas’ “slanderous accusations” against the Intelligence service as intended to entrench the intra-Palestinian division and effort to break its impasse.
Erekat was also reported in al-Quds and al-Ayyam warning that the additional deductions from the tax revenues and the Israeli occupation policies against the Palestinian people enjoy uned US support.
President Mahmoud Abbas was reported in al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida reaffirming that the salaries or stipends paid to the families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention and those killed by Israeli forces are a red line that won’t be crossed.
Abbas made his comments during a meeting with Fadwa Barghouthi, the wife of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida added in this regard jailed Barghouthi reaffirmed his full support to Abbas’ “solid” positions in the face of all the challenges to the Palestinian question.
According to al-Quds, a number of Palestinians were injured from Israeli military gunfire during military raids that triggered confrontations in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Hebron and the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida elaborated that nine Palestinians were injured from Israeli military gunfire as hundreds of settlers barged their way into Joseph’s Tomb near Nablus.
Al-Quds said that gun-toting Israeli soldiers forced a number of farmers to leave their lands adjacent to the Israeli colonial settlement of Shavi Shomron in the northern West Bank.
It added that Israeli Jewish extremists punctured the tires of three vehicles belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel in Safad.
It reported Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors the construction of Israeli colonial settlements in the northern West Bank, warning against perpetrating massacres by settlers against Palestinians in the Nablus-district villages.
According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Israeli forces rounded up 15 Palestinians in multiple raids across the West Bank.
The dailies highlighted media reports that Hamas is discussing long-term ceasefire agreement with Israel.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported Arabic and Israeli sources claiming affirming that there has been tangible progress in the ceasefire and prisoner exchange talks between Hamas and Israel.
Meanwhile, al-Quds reported Hamas denying media reports claiming that it is holding such discussions with Israel.
Fatah movement was reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida slamming Hamas’ senior official Ismail Haniyeh’s overseas tour as intended to market the US-touted Mideast plan, dubbed deal of the century, and affirming that he does not have any representative capacity.
Palestinian-Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi was reported in al-Quds announcing that he has proposed a economic roadmap worth of 64 billion shekels to address structural discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Focusing on Jerusalem, al-Quds said that 234 settlers forced their way into flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
It added that the Waqf-appointed guards of the mosque compound detected photos and maps for the so-called ‘Third Temple’ with tourists who forced their way into the mosque compound.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that Israel used a British Palestine Mandate-era emergency act to impose a nighttime curfew on several Palestinian youths in the occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.
Chairman of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission Qadri Abu Bakr was reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida revealing that President Abbas has ordered the preparing of an urgent file of the names of sick Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention to refer it to the International Criminal Court.
Finally, al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted human rights groups’ statistics showing that Israel has detained 5,500 Palestinians since the start of 2019, and that five Palestinians in Israeli custody has died as a result of torture and medical negligence since the start of the same year.
K.F.
