Detention of Jerusalem Governor Focus of dailies

The detention of the Palestinian Governor of Jerusalem Adnan Gheith by Israeli forces dominated the front page headlines in Palestinian Arabic dailies on Monday.

Al-Ayyam reported that Israeli occupation authorities extended the detention of Gheith until Thursday ]November 29th[, while al-Hayat Al-Jadida said that Gheith’s detention was widely condemned by Palestinian officials and the public.

Both dailies added that Israeli troops quelled a rally protesting Gheith’s detention.

Gheith was reportedly detained for the third time in a month following an Israeli military raid into his home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan early Sunday morning.

Israeli occupation authorities have reportedly prevented Gheith and his predecessor, Adnan Husseini, from travelling for being involved in the arrest and investigation of a Palestinian merchant who sold lands to Israeli settlers.

Al-Quds reported that a Fatah delegation, ]headed by Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad[, has arrived to Cairo to discuss the intra-Palestinian reconciliation portfolio, a theme that was also covered in al-Hayat al-Jadida.

In this regard, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was reported in al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reiterating the Palestinian leadership’s readiness to implement the 2011 Cairo Reconciliation Agreement.

Politburo member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Talal Abu-Tharifa was reported in al-Ayyam stating that Egypt’s decision to invite other Palestinian factions to the reconciliation talks is associated with progress in Fatah-Hamas meetings.

Fresh Israeli settlers’ attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank also hit the front page headlines in the dailies.

The three dailies reported that settlers punctured the tires of several Palestinian-owned vehicles and spray-painted racist graffiti in al-Mughayyer village, north of Ramallah.

Al-Quds said that Israeli bulldozers continued to level Palestinian-owned lands in Jalud village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, for settlement expansion.

Al-Ayyam added in this regard that settlers uprooted dozens of olive trees in Turmusayya village, northeast of Ramallah.

According to al-Quds, Israeli forces briefly detained Palestinian construction workers near Adh-Dhahiriya crossing, southwest of Hebron.

It also reported that Israeli forces raided Deir Abu Mashaal village, northwest of Ramallah, triggering confrontations with Palestinian villagers.

Spotlighting the situation in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, al-Quds said that 65 settlers forced their way into the holy site, also known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif, under tightened Israeli police protection.

It added that Director of Islamic Waqf Department Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib briefed Director of Jordan’s Public Security Service Major General Fadel al-Hamoud on Israeli obstructions at the holy site.

According to al-Ayyam, staff members of the so-called Israeli Civil Administration delivered demolition notices to several Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Issawiya.

The “Civil Administration” is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.

Besides to that, the dailies highlighted media reports that the USAID’s plan to lay off half of its employees in the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank and the Gaza Strip) in the coming weeks and completely shut down by early 2019.

Moreover, the dailies spotlighted the President of Chad Idriss Deby’s trip to Israel, a trip that marked the first official visit by a leader of the Central African country after it severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 1972.

Deby was reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida claiming in French through a translator: “Of course, the renewal of diplomatic ties between us, which I very much want, is not something that can make the Palestinian issue disappear.”

Furthermore, al-Quds reported US Jewish officials expressing their belief that Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu works to counteract US President Donald Trump’s Mideast plan, dubbed deal of the century.

Regionally, the dailies highlighted the poisonous gas attack carried out by terrorist organizations in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo which caused over 100 Syrians to suffocate.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Lebanon has called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take action against Israel over the sinking of a boat carring refugees and foreign workers off the Lebanese coast during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Internationally, al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that the European Union (EU) has endorsed the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, dubbed Brexit.