RAMALLAH, September 21, 2016 (WAFA) – The remarks made by US President Barack Obama at the 71st session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Israeli settlement construction hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies on Wednesday.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported Obama as stating Israel “cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.”
Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted Obama saying: “Surely Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if . . . Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.”
Al-Quds said President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to address the assembly on Wednesday.
As part of their coverage of the UNGA session, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida also highlighted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of Israeli settlement construction.
He was reported in al-Ayyam as stating 10 years were lost to settlement construction instead of peace.
He was reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida as stating “ten years lost to illegal settlement expansion” and describing this situation as “madness.”
Al-Hayat al-Jadida also reported King Abdullah II of Jordan as stating: “No justice has spread more bitter fruit than the denial of a Palestinian state.”
While al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted the UNGA session in their main front page news items, al-Ayyam opted to highlight the killing of a Palestinian teenager in the southern West Bank district of Hebron.
It said a Palestinian teenager was “assassinated in cold blood” by Israeli forces at the entrance of the Hebron town of Bani Naim. Al-Hayat al-Jadida described the killing of the teen as “extrajudicial execution.”
It is worth adding that the slain teen was identified as 16-year-old Issa Tarayra.
Highlighting West Bank detention raids, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said Israeli forces detained over 30 Palestinians in large-scale overnight detention raids across the West Bank.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Israeli troops shot and injured several Palestinians during raids that sparked clashes in the Bethlehem camp of Duheisha, the Ramallah camp of al-Jalazoun and Hebron.
Citing a report published in Haaretz, al-Quds said Israel decided not to make public files on the Nakba (catastrophe) and displacement of Palestinian refugees in 1948.
It said Israeli military closed roads leading to several villages south of Nablus causing hardship for Palestinian commuters.
The dailies reported head of Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission Issa Qaraqe as announcing intensive contacts are underway with Israel to bring the suffering of Palestinian hunger strikers to an end.
K.F./M.A.
