RAMALLAH, January 7, 2017 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas’ warning against moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was the Saturday front page highlight of two of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies.
The third, al-Quds, opted to highlight Israel’s return of corpses of two Palestinians killed by its security forces in September to their families for burial in Hebron as well as the Israeli army crackdown on the weekly anti-settlements protests in the West Bank.
These stories were also highlighted on the front page of the two other dailies, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, which all printed a picture of Palestinians confronting an Israeli army bulldozer in the Qalqilya area village of Kufr Qaddoum, one of the weekly protest locations.
The main front page headline in al-Hayat al-Jadida that was printed in red and went across the entire page quoted Abbas saying that anything “that would change the status of Jerusalem is a red line, which we will not accept.”
The headline in al-Ayyam also made the same point by Abbas regarding Jerusalem being a red line but also added a statement in which Abbas said that it will also “put peace in the world in a crisis that we will not come out from.”
On this subject, al-Quds printed a story quoting US Secretary of State saying that moving the embassy to Jerusalem will create an explosion throughout the region.
“You’d have an explosion, an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank, and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region,” Kerry said in the interview on the American TV stat ion, CBS.
Al-Quds also printed a story about the US Congress denouncing Security Council resolution 2334 that condemned Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian land. It said the Palestinian National Council has denounced this move by the Congress.
This story was also highlighted in al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida.
Al-Quds also reported on a plan by extreme right-wing Israeli cabinet minister Naftali Bennet he intends to present to US President-elect Donald Trump once he takes office in the White House on January 20. The plan includes Israeli annexation of the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the east of Jerusalem as well as the entire C area of the West Bank, which makes around 60 per cent of its area.
Celebrating Christmas by the Orthodox churches in Palestine was also highlighted on the front page of the three dailies with pictures of church leaders in Bethlehem and in meetings with President Abbas, who attended the midnight mass for the Greek Orthodox at the Nativity Church.
Al-Ayyam said the family of a Gaza fisherman who went missing on Thursday after his boat was sank by Israeli navy has declared him dead even though his body was not yet found and it is not known if he had drowned in sea or was captured by the Israelis.
M.K.
