RAMALLAH, March 10, 2017 (WAFA) – The closure of the occupied Palestinian Territories for an upcoming Jewish holiday and detention raids across the West Bank hit the front page headlines in local Palestinian dailies.
The dailies said Israel has imposed a closure on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim.
Al-Quds added Israeli forces detained scores of Palestinians, including a lawmaker, during predawn raids across the West Bank, ]including East Jerusalem.[
Al-Ayyam added the number of detainees totaled 30, while al-Hayat al-Jadida said it totaled 32.
On the other hand, al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson’s visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in its main news item.
It reported him referring to the Balfour Declaration: “The UK had failed to reflect the political needs of the Palestinian people ]and their right to their own state[.”
Al-Ayyam also reported him as warning Israelis: “You have to have a two-state solution or else you have a kind of apartheid system.”
Furthermore, al-Ayyam reported Israeli troops raided the East Jerusalem district town of Hizma, sparking clashes with local youths and injuring three.
It also reported Israeli bulldozers demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the southern Israeli region of Naqab for the 110th time.
Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said Israeli settlers chopped down tens of olive tree saplings and sprayed poisonous pesticides on Palestinian crops in farmland, southeast of Yatta, in the southern West Bank.
Al-Quds said two young Palestinian men from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Issawiya were pulled from their vehicles and violently assaulted by Israeli forces.
It added despite its increased budget, the Israeli Municipality of West Jerusalem has frozen the master plans of Palestinian neighborhoods and continues to discriminate against Palestinians across Jerusalem.
Moreover, al-Quds and al-Ayyam highlighted official Palestinian condemnations of the Israeli parliament’s approval of a bill banning the Muslim call to prayer.
Al-Ayyam said in this regard various Islamic bodies called on Palestinians in Jerusalem district to announce the call to prayer (Adhan) in public streets and atop houses in protest of the bill’s approval.
The dailies said President Mahmoud Abbas received a delegation from the Union for Reform Judaism in Ramallah.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported him affirming to his guests the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to achieving a comprehensive and just peace based on relevant Security Council resolutions, the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative.
Finally, al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported a US State Department deputy spokesperson announcing the US government has transferred frozen funds initially intended for the Palestinian Authority to humanitarian organizations operating in the occupied Palestinian Territory.
K.F.
