RAMALLAH, November 19, 2016 (WAFA) – The Israeli army shooting dead of a Palestinian protester during clashes near the Gaza borders with Israel and the crackdown on the weekly Friday marches across the West Bank hit the front page headlines of the Saturday Palestinian dailies.
Israeli forces shot dead Muhammad Abu Sada, 26, from Nusayrat in the central Gaza Strip, during clashes to the east of Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. He was shot in his chest. Two other Palestinians were shot and injured.
The dailies added scores of Palestinians were injured with rubber-coated steel bullets and suffocated from tear gas inhalation as Israeli forces suppressed the weekly West Bank Friday marches condemning settlement and construction of a wall.
While al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida covered the clashes in their main front page news item, al-Quds opted to highlight Israel’s efforts to continue settlement construction.
Al-Quds said Israel is waiting the time US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in order to construct 30,000 new settlement units in Jerusalem.
Highlighting Israel’s plans to advance the so-called “Formalization Bill” that would retroactively give Israeli government seal of approval to what it so far considers illegal settlement outposts across the West Bank, al-Quds and al-Ayyam said the Israeli government intends to form a committee to legalize the outposts.
Spotlighting the Israeli bill that would ban the Muslim call to prayer from playing over mosques’ loudspeakers, al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Palestinians inside Israel and Gaza demonstrated against the bill.
Al-Ayyam reported Arab member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Ayman Odeh as pledging Palestinians inside Israel would not comply with the bill.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said in this regard the call for Muslim prayer was played from loudspeakers in churches across the northern Israeli city of Nazareth in solidarity with the Muslim community and in condemnation of the bill, which is also supposed to affect the ringing of church bells.
Highlighting the imminent Fatah seventh conference, the dailies said Fatah’s Central Committee discussed the final preparations for the conference.
Furthermore, al-Hayat al-Jadida said Israel’s Supreme Court set Sunday as a deadline for the military prosecution to submit a response in the case of hunger-striking detainees Anas Shadid and Ahmad Abu Farah.
It is worth noting that Shadid and Abu Farah, both from the Hebron town of Surif, have been on hunger strike for over than 50 days in protest of being placed under administrative detention, an Israeli policy of internment without charge or trial based on undisclosed evidence.
Al-Ayyam reported Palestinians face imminent forcible eviction from 69 homes across occupied East Jerusalem.
Highlighting Trump’s anticipated hard-line stance on immigration and promotion of hawkish foreign policy, the dailies said Trump nominated three hawkish stalwarts to take justice, intelligence and national security posts in his administration.
K.F./M.A.
