RAMALLAH, July 5, 2017 (WAFA) – The latest UNESCO resolution critical of Israeli actions in the Old City of Jerusalem was the highlight of the front page headlines in local Palestinian dailies on Wednesday.
Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported UNESCO slamming all the actions that have been taken by Israeli occupation authorities in East Jerusalem and its surrounding since 1967 as null and void.
Al-Quds described UNESCO’s resolution as an “another slap in the face of Israel.”
Al-Ayyam added UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has adopted a resolution on the “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls” during its meeting in Krakow, Poland despite all Israeli pressures.
The dailies also reported the Palestinian government has decided to send 6,145 civil servants from the besieged Gaza Strip into early retirement.
Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported government spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud stating there the government had no other choice to end the division.
He was also reported in al-Ayyam noting the decision was only temporary to pressure Hamas, the de facto ruling party in Gaza, into relinquishing its control over the coastal enclave and end the division.
The government also approved the formation of the National Team for the Demarcation of Palestine’s Maritime Borders, said the papers.
Furthermore, al-Quds said Palestinian Foreign Ministry slammed the United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for calling on UNESCO not to add Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque on its World Heritage Palestinian sites.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said President Mahmoud Abbas held separate meetings with his Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Burkina Faso’s President Roch Kabore and Ethiopia’s President Mulatu Teshome during his presence in Addis Ababa for the African Union summit.
The dailies added Abbas was scheduled to meet his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo on next Sunday.
Al-Quds added Hamas is reluctant to disclose its understandings with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammad Dahlan.
The dailies said Israeli forces delivered punitive demolition notices for three Palestinian homes in Deir Abu Mishal and Silwad, northwest and east of Ramallah, belonging to families of Palestinians alleged to have attacked and killed Israelis.
In contrast, they added, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against demolishing the homes of three Israeli terrorists convicted of kidnapping and burning alive 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir in 2014.
Al-Ayyam added Israel demolished two Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, bringing the total number of homes demolished so far in 2017 to 76.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida explained police demolished Palestinian homes and two sheds in East Jerusalem.
Al-Ayyam said Israeli police detained six Palestinians from Nablus at a military checkpoint in East Jerusalem.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida added Israeli forces detained 30 Palestinians and injured two others with bullets in multiple overnight raids across the West Bank.
K.F./M.K.
