RAMALLAH, February 9, 2018 (WAFA) – The Israeli plan to build a park that would connect two settlements in Jerusalem hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies on Friday.
The dailies reported that Israeli occupation authorities advanced a plan to build a park or promenade that would connect two settlement outposts in the Mount of Olives, which overlooks the Old City of Jerusalem.
The promenade would reportedly link the two settlement outposts of “Beit Orot” and “Beit HaHoshen” in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Tur.
On the other hand, al-Quds opted to highlight West Bank raids and clashes in its main front page news item.
It reported that Palestinian factions called on the Palestinian people to hold peaceful rallies across the occupied Palestinian territories (the West Bank and Gaza) in support of Jerusalem.
It added ongoing detention raids and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in several West Bank districts.
According to al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, dozens of Palestinian school students suffered tear gas suffocation as Israeli forces showered their school with tear gas canisters in Hebron city and the Bethlehem-district town of al-Khader.
Al-Ayyam reported that Israeli forces detained 22 Palestinians, including two following alleged stabbing attempts, from the West Bank. According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, the detainees totaled 23.
They added that Israeli forces assaulted Palestinians during a raid into the Jenin city neighborhood of Wadi Burqin.
Spotlighting the deterioration of the public health system and imminent collapse in the besieged Gaza Strip due to Israeli siege and restrictions, al-Quds reported that an infant died as a result of the lack of medicines in Gaza.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam added that Qatar provided US$9 millions in support of the health sector in Gaza.
Furthermore, the dailies said that Israel’s top court has rejected Abu Khdeir killer’s insanity appeal and confirmed their life sentences.
The court reportedly rejected the appeal of Yosef Chaim Ben-David and two other Israelis, who had been convicted in the abduction and burning to death of Palestinian teenager Mohammad Abu Khdeir in July 2014.
Al-Quds reported the attorney representing the Abu Khdeir family pledging to sue instigators in international courts.
It also highlighted a Carnegie Middle East Center’s study stating that it was likely that a new popular uprising (intifada) would break out in the occupied Palestinian territories soon.
It also published excerpts from an article that was published in Haaretz under the title Churches fume as ]the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem[claims $168 million in overdue tax.
It quoted economic experts saying that the Palestinian budget has not been affected by the US decision to cut off funding to Palestine.
Highlighting the findings of an opinion poll by the Gaza-based al-Aqsa University’s Public Opinion Center, al-Quds said that 95.8 percent of Palestinians affirm that the US decision to cut off funding to the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, amounted to an open war against refugees.
Moreover, Palestinian envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour was reported in al-Ayyam stating that there were several options to resume Middle East peace talks.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported Chairman of Prisoners’ Affairs Committee Issa Qaraqe pledging that the Palestinian Authority (PA) would continue to pay the allowances to the families of prisoners in Israeli and those who were killed or injured by Israeli forces
Qaraqe reportedly made his statements in response to Israel’s bill that seeks to deduct these allowances annually from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA.
Finally, al-Hayat al-Jadida reported the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) stating that Israel was currently holding the bodies of 19 Palestinians in morgues in addition to 260 killed since the 1967 occupation.
K.F.
