RAMALLAH, October 17, 2012 (WAFA) – The protest on highway 443 in the West Bank that links Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, during which Palestinian and international supporters closed the road for Israeli traffic for 30 minutes, was the main front page subject of the Wednesday issue of the three Palestinian dailies.
All three papers, al-Quds, al-Ayyam an al-Hayat al-Jadida, highlighted this protest with pictures showing the protesters blocking traffic on the road used only by Israeli travelers while Palestinians living in the villages along this road are banned from using it, except for few kilometers opened up following a court decision.
A letter President Mahmoud Abbas sent to his United States counterpart Barack Obama on the Palestinian decision to win United Nations nonmember status was also highlighted on the front page of the three dailies.
The story, which was published on WAFA news agency, said Abbas wrote Obama stressing that the two-state solution remains the choice of the Palestinian Authority and that by going to the UN he was only trying to stress this fact.
The decision by the government to pay half of September salary for its public employees by Thursday was also reported on the front page of the dailies. This issue took prominence in light of the long delay in paying salaries, as well as in the decision by the Union of Public Employees to call for a two-day general strike for Wednesday and Thursday and two more days next week to protest failure of the government to pay full salaries.
The government decided also that the holiday for Eid al-Adha starts next Thursday morning and ends the Tuesday after. The Eid starts Saturday October 26.
The papers also reported that Prime Minister Salam Fayyad received an official invitation to visit Cairo to meet his Egyptian counterpart. Fayyad said after receiving the invitation from Egypt’s representative to the Palestinian Territory that he would arrange for this visit, which will be his first, as soon as possible.
The papers also printed an AFP report that said the French delegation that will investigate causes for the death of Yasser Arafat is expected to arrive in the Palestinian Territory on November 26.
M.S./F.R.
