RAMALLAH, May 4, 2018 (WAFA) – The re-election of President Mahmoud Abbas as the Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee at the end of the four-day meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Ramallah hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies on Friday.

The dailies reported that Abbas was “unanimously” re-elected as the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee.

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida added that the PNC announced that the interim period stipulated in the 1993 Oslo Accords, with all obligations involved, was no longer valid.

Abbas was reported in the dailies announcing that the salary arrears of Gaza’s civil servants would be paid today and reiterating that the failure to pay them was due to technical reasons.

Al-Ayyam reported in this regard that the PNC adopted a political platform stressing Palestinian unalterable principles and chose a new PLO’s Executive Committee, keeping a number of vacant seats for its members who did not attend the meeting.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Abbas entrusted the PNC with suspending the recognition of Israel until the latter (Israel) recognizes the State of Palestine based on the June 4, 1967 borders, cancels its decision to annex East Jerusalem and halts settlement construction.

It added that Abbas reiterated condemnation of and called for the nullification of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

It also reported him demanding the implementation of the decisions of the Amman Summit of 1980, which called for Arab countries to sever diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

It also reported him announcing that the list of the members of the new PLO’s Executive Committee was unanimously chosen by all PLO factions who took part in the PNC’s meeting.

It added that the PNC has entrusted all of its powers to the 115-member PLO’s Central Council.

Furthermore, al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported Israeli occupation authorities announcing that human rights laws were not applicable to the Great March of Return protests along Gaza eastern border.

The dailies said that a Palestinian youth succumbed to his wounds he had sustained last week as he participated in the Great March of Return protests along Gaza border.

The protestor, identified as Anas Abu Aser, 19, was shot by Israeli snipers east of Gaza on April 27.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida added that Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza protestors after shooting and injuring them.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported that Gazans were preparing for the sixth Friday of the Great March of Return, dubbed the Friday of Palestinian Workers.

Highlighting the situation in the West Bank, al-Quds reported that Israeli forces installed new metal gates, south of Hebron.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam added in this regard that Israeli forces sealed an agricultural road near al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem.

They added that a total of 110 Israeli settlers forced their way into East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

They also reported that Amnesty International called for an arms embargo to be imposed on Israel as military unlawfully kills and maims Gaza protestors.

Al-Ayyam said that Israeli troops detained 13 Palestinians in multiple overnight raids across the West Bank. According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, the detainees totaled 14.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Israeli forces demolished an agricultural structure in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron.

Highlighting a report by Israeli NGO Kerem Navot (Naboth’s Vineyard), al-Quds said that a former chief Israeli military prosecutor lives in an unlicensed home built on privately-owned Palestinian land in the West Bank.

It spotlighted Gaza children’s nightmares on the rise issued by the Norwegian Refugees Council.

According to al-Ayyam, an Israeli court convicted Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour of “incitement to terrorism” for writing and publishing a poem on social media.

Tatour, 36, a resident of the Galilee village of Reineh near Nazareth, was detained in October 2015 after publishing, among others, a poem titled “Resist, me people, resist them”.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported Fatah movement denouncing the Israeli campaign that branded Abbas’ recent remarks on Jews as anti-Semitic, and accusing Israel of taking Abbas’ remarks out of their contexts.

K.F.