RAMALLAH, Tuesday, June 02, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s statements on Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the West Bank and remarks by an Amnesty International official on the suffering of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation hit the front page headlines in the dailies published today.

The dailies reported that Gantz instructed his army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi to hasten preparations for Israel’s pending annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank.

The dailies added in this regard that President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled today to chair a meeting for the crisis cell in charge of following up on responding to Israel’s impending annexation move.

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted Amnesty International’s MENA Regional Director Heba Morayef’s remarks responding to the Jerusalem District Court hearing into the petition to lift the punitive travel ban imposed on Laith Abu Zeyad.

Morayef was reported saying: “Palestinians living under occupation are already trapped in a system of control, that touches every aspect of their lives and severely s their movement.”

Al-Quds said that the Palestinian cabinet discussed the establishment of a banking institution as a means to circumvent Israeli measures regarding the payments of salaries for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida elaborated that the cabinet decided to set up a government bank that would provide banking services for all segments of the Palestinian people.

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh was reported stating that the leadership would complete plans on ending agreements with Israel and the US.

Al-Ayyam said that the Palestinian government has identified six measures for the international community to adopt in response to Israel’s annexation announcement.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted the head of the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission Qadri Abu Baker saying that Palestinian banks would continue to process the payments for the families of prisoners and the martyrs pending the establishment of an ad hoc banking institution.

According to al-Quds, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has extended the provisional order to ban Palestinian family reunifications for a year.

Spotlighting the ongoing illegal demolition of Palestinian structures, the dailies said that Israeli occupation authorities demolished structures and seized machineries in the Jordan Valley.

The dailies said that Israeli forces conducted multiple raids across the West Bank, detaining 24 Palestinians.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Israeli forces broke into the archeological town of Sebastia, located to the northwest of Nablus city.

The dailies said that another Palestinian tested positive yesterday for the novel coronavirus in the northern West Bank district of Qalqilya, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the occupied territories to 628 since the pandemic outbreak.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, two Palestinians died due to the novel coronavirus in the US and Egypt.

Al-Quds reported Israeli-Palestinian professor, Rassem Khamaisi, cautioning against the gravity of Israel’s impending move to annex large swaths of the West Bank.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that Palestinian citizens of Israel continue to stage protests against Israeli police crimes and extrajudicial execution of Palestinians.

It published Xinhua’s news analysis Political ties between Palestine, Israel hard to be disengaged despite Palestinian abolition of bilateral agreements.

It highlighted another Xinhua analysis reflecting Israeli warnings that Israel’s impending annexation move would push the situation into a volatile environment.

Al-Ayyam reported a Jordanian source announcing that there has been no change in the composition of the Jerusalem Islamic Endowments (Waqf) Council.

It spotlighted a news report revealing that Jordan is likely to halt military coordination and border security with Israel should Israel press ahead the annexation step.

K.F./M.K.