RAMALLAH, Friday, September 13, 2019 (WAFA) – The ongoing seizure of Palestinian land for the expansion of an illegal settlement in the West Bank with the ultimate purpose of entrenching Israel’s settler-colonialist project in Palestine dominated the front page headlines in Friday’s issue of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies.

The dailies reported that Israeli occupation forces handed the municipal councils of  several Palestinian villages in Nablus district order, notifying them of the imminent seizure of their land for the expansion of Yitzhar settlement.

They added that Israeli forces stormed the Palestinian Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

According to al-Ayyam, ten Palestinians were rounded up in multiple Israeli military raids across the West Bank.

Al-Qudsa said that Israeli troops and naval boats besieging the Gaza Strip opened fire towards Gaza’s fishermen and shepherds.

Al-Ayyam reported that Israeli bulldozers razed hundreds dunums of Palestinian farmland and destroyed five water wells in the northern Jordan Valley.

President Mahmoud Abbas’ phone call with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud also hit the front page headlines in the dailies.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida elaborated that the Saudi monarch slammed Israeli Prime Minister’s pledge extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley if he wins re-election as “null and void”.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said the Saudi monarch reiterated his country’s “steady positions” in support of the Palestinian people.

Al-Quds highlighted AFP’s report Jordan Valley settlers hail Netanyahu annexation pledge.

Chairman of the Qatari Committee for Gaza Reconstruction Mohammad al-Emadi was reported in al-Quds and al-Ayyam stating that his recent statements on the tragic situation in Gaza were exploited.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl was reported in al-Quds saying that the United Nations work to keep the rights of the Palestinian refugees protected and refugees exist.

Krähenbühl said: “Some make the attempt to question and undermine the very idea that Palestine refugees exist, even though the international community – led by the Member States represented here in this meeting today - has enshrined its recognition of the refugees in successive United Nations General Assembly resolutions.”

Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported the European Union (EU) expressing its commitment to supporting Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

According to al-Quds and al-Ayyam, 120 Palestinians prisoners in Israeli jails have joined the open-ended hunger strike ]that was started by 29 others two days ago[.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida added in this regard that the prisoners have decided to implement new measures in protest of their dismal and cruel detention conditions.

Focusing on Jerusalem, al-Quds said that Israeli Jewish settlers forced their way to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under police escort.

It added that Israeli police have prevented the Reconstruction Committee, which serves as part of Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf Department, from restoring serious cracks in the wall next to Bab al-Silsila, which leads to the mosque compound.

It also reported that Ateret Cohanim settler-colonialist group petitioned the Israeli court once again to evict the Dajani family from the Imperial Hotel in Jerusalem’s Old City.

This step came almost three months after an Israeli court rejected the appeal of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and approved the sale of three strategically located properties in Jerusalem’s Old City to Ateret Cohanim settler group.

The assets include the Petra and Imperial hotels overlooking the Omar Bin al-Khattab Square near Jaffa Gate and a plot of land that includes a building known as al-Muadamiya, located near Bab Hutta in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam reported that Palestinian Attorney General Akram al-Khatib indicted three of 21-year-old Israa Gharib’s relatives of beating ]her[ to death.

According to al-Ayyam, Israeli settlers hurled stones at Palestinian vehicles traveling along Jenin-Nablus Road.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was reported in al-Ayyam affirming his rejection of all unilateral measures undermining the two-state solution.

UN Secretary General António Guterres was reported in al-Quds cautioning that: “the two-state vision farther away as situation deteriorates.”

K.F.