RAMALLAH, Wednesday, October 21, 2020 (WAFA) – The coronavirus disease and its impact on the Palestinian economy as well as the violations perpetrated by Israeli government and settlers in the occupied territories hit the front page of the three Arabic Palestinian dailies published today.
Al-Ayyam daily reporting on the latest coronavirus updates said that eight people have died of the disease in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 481 new cases were recorded and 513 recovered in the last 24 hours.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said in its main front-page story that losses to the Palestinian economy this year as a result of coronavirus is more than $2.5 billion.
Al-Quds daily said Israeli settlers set up a new illegal settlement outpost in the Jordan Valley where they set up a cattle farm.
The three papers also reported that a group of Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers as the latter were picking their olive trees north of Deir al-Hatab village, located to the east of Nablus city, and kicked them out of their lands. The assailants came from the illegal Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh.
Israeli settlers from the illegal colonial settlement of Shavei Shomron were responsible for flooding Palestinian-owned land in the western section of the Sebastia town, north of Nablus city, with sewage and wastewater, disrupting the olive harvest, as reported by the dailies.
The papers also said that Israeli forces raided the village of Qalandia, north of Jerusalem and handed residents stop-work orders for three buildings, dozens of structures, and retaining walls under the pretext they were being built without a permit.
Al-Ayyam and al-Quds said that Israeli warplanes bombed several sites in the Gaza Strip last night.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida and al-Quds reported that Palestinian detainee in Israel, Maher al-Akhras, whose health has been deteriorating, has entered his 87th day of an open-ended hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention. Al-Akhras is demanding his release from prison since he was not charged of anything.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that the condition of Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who was admitted to Hadassah Hospital in West Jerusalem on Sunday suffering from serious complications after contracting the coronavirus the week before, is stable, as confirmed by his daughter Salam Erekat.
Al-Quds said Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed four normalization agreements and announced a joint fund with the Unites States.
K.T./M.K.
