RAMALLAH, March 17, 2017 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas’ remarks during a meeting with the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mladen Ivanic in Ramallah hit the front page headlines in local Palestinian dailies.

Abbas was reported in al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida welcoming international and Arab efforts supporting the Palestinian people’s quest to achieve freedom and independence.

He was also reported in al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida saying US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Jason Greenblatt did not come to Ramallah to offer ideas or make proposals, but rather to listen and learn ]from the Palestinian leadership[.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported Ivanic expressing his country’s support for the Palestinian people’s right to exist, the two-state solution and the Palestinian cause.

Furthermore, the dailies said Israeli “Defense” Minister Avigdor Lieberman designated the Palestinian National Fund as a “terrorist organization” and threatened to take steps to seize the fund’s assets.

Highlighting the issue in its main news item, al-Hayat al-Jadida reported President Office slamming Lieberman’s announcement as a “basic violation of the Oslo Accords” and a decision that would “blow up the agreement that underpins ]our[ legal relationship with Israel.”

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Israel’s top court ruled that East Jerusalem Palestinians are “native-born residents” who are entitled to restore their residency rights.

Besides, the dailies said a Palestinian driver survived a murder attempt by Israeli settlers in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa.

They added settlers uprooted dozens of grape seedlings in al-Khader town in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem.

 Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida also reported settlers opened gunfire towards Palestinian students in a secondary school in Burin village, south of Nablus.

Al-Ayyam added Israeli occupation forces seized a makeshift home in Furush Beit Dajan, east of Nablus, and delivered stop-construction order for a Palestinian pool in the Northern Jordan Valley village of al-Farisiya.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes in the besieged Gaza Strip, causing extensive damage and cutting off four main electricity supply lines.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said Fatah Central Committee expressing support for the Palestinian leadership’s willingness to “engage in a serious dialogue” with Trump’s administration.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki hailing the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia’s (ESCWA) report confirming Israel has established an a apartheid regime as a UN document that “demonstrates Israel’s racist policies”.

K.F.