RAMALLAH, January 8, 2018 (WAFA) – Clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in several West Bank areas that left injuries among Palestinians occupied the main front page story in the three Palestinian Arabic dailies on Monday.
Birzeit University and al-Mazraa al-Sharqiyeh near Ramallah were a couple of locations for such clashes that resulted in one serious injury from live ammunition while others were hit by rubber-coated metal bullets.
Two of the three papers printed pictures of soldiers arresting a Palestinian youth in the Nablus area village of Salem, while the third, al-Quds, printed a picture of Israeli police arresting a youth outside Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate.
Al-Quds said in a story that an Israeli police report showed that Israel “executed” 201 Palestinians since October 2015 who were believed involved in or wanting to attack Israelis.
In other news, al-Quds reported in a front page story that with Israel declaring the Palestinian National Fund, the monetary arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as a “terrorist organization,” the decision is bound to affect banking and employees in the occupied territories.
It also said Israel has resumed supplying the Gaza Strip with 50 megawatt of electricity after the Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed to continue to pay for it. The supply was suspended in June when the PA said it will not pay anymore for Gaza power because Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, was not paying its dues for the electricity.
However, with the reconciliation agreement signed in October between Fatah and Hamas, the PA agreed to end all sanctions it has imposed on Gaza, including supplying it with enough electric current to provide households and businesses normal supply of electricity after months of rationed provisions.
Al-Ayyam quoted Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr saying that there was progress in the work of the administrative committee, a branch of the reconciliation efforts, regarding Gaza’s 40,000 employees hired by Hamas following the division 10 years ago.
It also highlighted calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut international aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) until it disappears.
The paper also said Cairo denied a report that appeared in the New York Times which said that an Egyptian intelligence officer has called local TV talk show hosts to instruct them not to speak strongly against US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital rather to treat it as not a significant move.
It also said an Israeli military court postponed by one week a hearing into the case against Ahed Tamimi, 16, and her mother, Nariman, accused of humiliating Israeli soldiers.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted Fatah saying that the US and Israel cannot force the Palestinians into surrender.
It also published a report about Karim Younis, the longest serving Palestinian political prisoner in Israel who completed 36 years in jail.
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