RAMALLAH, June 30, 2018 (WAFA) – Israeli army shooting and killing of two Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, including a child, was the highlight of the front page stories of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies on Saturday.
The headlines going across the top of the front page of the three dailies said two were killed - a youth and a child - and hundreds wounded in another Friday of protests at the Gaza border with Israel.
The protests started on March 30 with a demand for the right of return of refugees to their homes they were expelled from when Israel was created in their homeland in 1948 and have continued every Friday since then. More than 140 Palestinians, including medics, journalists, women and children, were shot and killed by Israeli army snipers in these protests and over 14,000 injured from live and rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.
The dailies also said that the Israel army cracked down on the weekly Friday protests in the occupied West Bank, launched mainly against Israeli settlement and wall construction on Palestinian land.
Meanwhile, Jewish settlers set on fire or cut down hundreds of olive trees in several West Bank villages, said the dailies.
Al-Ayyam said Israel is planning to build a settlement that would eat a large area of Palestinian land and isolate villages and towns south of Jerusalem.
Al-Quds said on this subject that the Israeli “civil administration”, an arm of the Israeli military government in the occupied West Bank, announced seizure of 17,000 dunums of land in the Bethlehem area and said that a settlement will be built there.
On the American efforts to push for the so-called deal of the century in the area, al-Hayat al-Jadida and al-Ayyam said the United States negotiators have scaled down their expectations from the success of their scheme after the Arab countries have refused to pressure the Palestinians to accept it.
Al-Quds said the US was frustrated by the Arab position and the chances of success of its scheme.
Al-Ayyam said an Israel court ordered the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay around $4 million in compensation to Palestinian collaborators with the Israeli occupation it had arrested and jailed. The court ordered to cut this money from the PA’s tax revenues collected by Israel on its behalf.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said Foreign Minister Riyad Malki will represent President Mahmoud Abbas at the African Summit which will be open in Mauritania on Sunday.
The papers said Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue was covered with the colors of the Palestinian flag in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The papers also reported on the developments in Syria and the ceasefire agreement in the south of the troubled country.
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