RAMALLAH, The latest developments in occupied Jerusalem, particularly in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and the Ukraine crisis were highlighted on the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today.
While al-Hayat al-Jadida daily made Sheikh Jarrah events its main front-page story focusing on the mistreatment by the Israeli police of a youth with disability who was severally beaten for simply saying Allahu Akbar (God is great) and who was transferred to hospital for medical treatment, al-Ayyam and al-Quds dailies also reported on the situation in Sheikh Jarrah but lower on the page and said that the Israeli forces attacked residents and activists in the vicinity of the Salem family in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, causing bruises and fractures to several people, including the disabled youth.
Al-Quds said in its main front-page story that the Israeli so-called Nature Authority announced the freezing of a plan to appropriate a large area of church lands in the Mount of Olives that overlooks the old city of occupied East Jerusalem under the pretext of building a “national park”.
It said the decision to freeze the land-grab plan came following strong protests from the various churches in the city, It quoted the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem, Theophilos III, saying, “We achieved a major victory in the battle to preserve our holy places on the Mount of Olives, but the war against us is not over yet.”
Al-Ayyam highlighted the Ukraine crisis making it its main front-page story, and said that Russian President Putin has recognized two separatist entities in Ukraine amidst threats of sanctions from the western countries.
The papers said that Israeli settlers, backed by soldiers, attacked Palestinian students heading to their school in al-Lubban al-Sharqiya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
They also highlighted the Israeli repression of the Palestinian political prisoners in its jails.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Human Rights Watch signed onto a European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI), registered with the European Commission in September 2021 and initiated on February 20, 2022, which calls for adopting legislation to prohibit products originating from unlawful settlements from entering the EU market and to ban EU exports to settlements.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that there is a dangerous political vacuum that may result in the explosion of the situation in the Palestinian territories, stressing that Israel is an expansionist state that bears political responsibility for its actions against the Palestinian people, as reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida.
The dailies said that the West Bank recorded 12 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, 524 new cases, and 903 recoveries, while the Gaza Strip had six deaths, 967 new cases, and 3000 recoveries, and East Jerusalem reported one death, 880 new cases, and 1400 recoveries.
Source: Palestine News Info Agency