RAMALLAH, May 11, 2017 (WAFA) – News regarding deterioration in health of Palestinian hunger-striking detainees in Israeli prisons following 25 days of fast as well as US peace efforts in the area hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies on Thursday.
The three dailies said the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) continued to impose repressive measures on hunger strikers, including punitively transferring some of them from one prison to another.
They said prisoners’ advocacy groups have warned of the possibility that the hunger strikers suffer from sudden major health setbacks as the strike prolongs.
They said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is expected to visit Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned Fatah figure and leader of the strike, on Thursday. Barghouti has been placed in solitary confinement since the beginning of the strike and no one, including his lawyers, has been allowed to see him since then.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said Fadwa Barghouti, wife of Marwan, wrote a letter to Pope Francis urging him to intervene “before it is too late.”
On the political front, the dailies highlighted US efforts to revive Palestinian-Israeli peace talks with al-Quds saying that US President Donald Trump is going to seek during his upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia an Arab Islamic umbrella for relaunching Palestinian-Israeli talks and that he will set between 9 to 12 months for these talks to reach a settlement.
The papers said Abbas received an invitation from Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz to attend the Arab and Muslim leaders’ summit with Trump in Riyadh.
Furthermore, the dailies said Abbas was scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday in Sochi.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian olive fields in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, with al-Quds explaining Israeli forces hindered Palestinian residents’ attempts to put out fires.
Both dailies said members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, gave preliminary approval to a bill defining Israel as the “national home of Jewish people.”
Al-Quds reported Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah stating the Palestinians place great reliance on Europe in relation to ending the Israeli occupation.
Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida said the Hamas-affiliated al-Wafaa Islamic Bloc won a majority of the seats in student council elections in Birzeit University near Ramallah.
Al-Ayyam reported FIFA stating it was premature for its congress to take any decision on Israeli clubs based in settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Spotlighting an inquiry by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem into the killing of 16-year-old Fatima Hjeiji by Israeli police in East Jerusalem, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported the group affirming Hjeiji did not pose a real danger the Israeli forces.
K.F./M.K.
