RAMALLAH, Thursday, February 07, 2019 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas’ remarks during the Palestinian Peace and Freedom Forum, held at the presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on peace and the Israeli elections hit the front page headlines in the Palestinian Arabic dailies on Thursday.

They reported Abbas expressing his hopes that the Israeli parliamentary elections, scheduled in April, would bring a new leadership that truly believes in peace, stressing that he is ready to work with him.

He was also reported in al-Ayyam stating that Israeli extremism killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and in al-Hayat al-Jadida reiterating that “I believe in peace more than ever before and I do not want war.”

The death of a Palestinian prisoner from the Gaza Strip after serving 28 years in Israeli jails as a result of medical negligence also dominated the front page headlines.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported that Faris Baroud from Shati refugee camp died in prison of medical negligence.

Al-Quds added that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are on high alert following Baroud’s death.

The dailies also reported in this regard that the Palestinian presidency mourned Baroud and warned against the slow death of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as a result of medical negligence.

Baroud, 51, died shortly after he was transferred from Rimon prison in the south of Israel to an Israeli hospital following deterioration in his health. He was arrested in March 1991 and was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing an Israeli settler in the Gaza Strip.

Additionally, the dailies reported that Israel fired artillery shells at a location east of Khan Younis in the southern besieged Gaza Strip.

They explained that the cross-border attack came in retaliation for an earlier rocket fire from Gaza.

Highlighting daily raids, al-Quds said that Israeli occupation authorities delivered demolition orders for several Palestinian houses in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Isawiyeh.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Israeli forces expelled dozens of Palestinian families from their houses to make room for military drills in the Jordan Valley.

It added that Israeli settlers tampered with a Palestinian archeological site, located to the south of the northern West Bank village of Jaloud, and uprooted fully-grown trees at another area to the south of Nablus.

Furthermore, the dailies reported that the UN Security Council regretted Israel’s decision to expel the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) monitors from the southern West Bank city.

The dailies spotlighted the meeting of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council (FRC), which convened in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said FRC inaugurated its fifth ordinary session with Abbas’ participation.

According to al-Hayat al-Jadida, Abbas stressed the importance of democracy in Palestinian political life.

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida added in this regard that Israel prevented several FRC members from leaving the besieged Gaza Strip to attend the council’s session in Ramallah.

Al-Quds spotlighted a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) report detailing that scores of Palestinian families are under the imminent threat of forced displacement by Israel.

According to al-Ayyam, US President Donald Trump’s advisor Jared Kushner will not unveil the details of Trump’s Mideast plan, dubbed deal of the century, at Warsaw conference.

Abbas was also reported in al-Ayyam stating that he seeks to form a political government that includes Palestinian factions and revealing that Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu always evades any trilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Abbas made these remarks during an interview with the Russian Sputnik news agency.

Yet, al-Ayyam reported Hamas said Cairo would host a dialogue among Palestinian factions on the ways to address challenges to the Palestinian national project.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said that the US Senate has passed a bill that includes provision against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.

K.F./M.K.