Zionist Forces Detain Five Palestinians from Khan Younes
KHAN YOUNES – Zionist forces Thursday morning detained five Palestinians near the border fence to the east of Khan Younes city in the southern besieged Gaza Strip.
WAFA correspondent said that Israeli soldiers positioned behind the borderline sand mounds detained five Palestinians who were close to the border fence.
The Israeli army regularly detains and opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen, shepherds, and farmers along the border areas if they approach the unilaterally declared buffer zone.
Israel has placed a tightened blockade on Gaza since 2007 after Hamas took over power in the strip, denying about 1.8 million populations their basic rights and as a result causing a decline in their standard of living, unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty.
US report dropping reference to “Israeli occupied” territories
On the other hand in Ramallah, the US State Department’s annual global; human rights report dropping the usual description of Syria’s Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza) from “Israeli-occupied” to “Israeli-controlled” hit the front page headlines in Thursday’s issue of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that Washington drops the designation or status of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as being “Israeli-occupied” or “under Israeli occupation”.
Commenting on the US State Department’s report, the dailies reported presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh stating that: “the US decision is a continuation of the US anti-Palestinian approach ]and contrary to the legitimacy of all international resolutions[”.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida also reported him stating that the US dropping of the occupation status of the Palestinian territories as part of the US plot to pass the so-called deal of the century, which aims at liquidating the Question of Palestine.
On the other hand, al-Ayyam said that Israeli occupation authorities reopened Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following a one-day closure.
It added that Israeli settler groups called on followers to en masse force their way into the holy site.
Additionally, al-Quds and al-Ayyam said hundreds of Palestinians marched in the funeral procession of Mohammad Shaheen in the northern West Bank city of Slfit.
Shaheen, 23, succumbed to his wounds after directly being shot by Israeli forces in the heart during confrontations in Salfit on Tuesday evening.
The dailies reported that Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian homes in the area of al-Qubbeh, south of Jerusalem, in addition to an animal barn and an agricultural structure in Beit Jala city.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said that Israeli forces detained 51 Palestinians within 24 hours during multiple raids across the West Bank, and al-Quds noted they also seized a Palestinian vehicle.
Al-Ayyam added that Israeli forces rounded up seven Palestinians for purportedly planning to set Qalandia military checkpoint on fire.
Al-Quds and al-Ayyam said that Israel has stepped up its campaign against the recent United Nations panel’s report showing that Israeli soldiers have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by intentionally targeting civilian Palestinians participating in the weekly Great March of Return protests in Gaza in 2018.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported the Palestinian community in the US slamming all suspicious organizations promoting economic peace with Israel.
It also reported Foreign and Expatriates Affairs Minister Riyad al-Malki calling on Arab countries to implement the decisions of previous Arab summits on providing a financial safety net to the Palestinian Authority.
Regionally, al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported the Speaker of the Saudi Shura Council Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al-Sheikh saying that “the Palestinian issue is at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s concerns in recognition of the high Islamic status of Jerusalem.”
Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida highlighted Jordan’s monarch Abdullah II’s meeting with members of the US Congress in Washington.
They reported him warning of the ongoing Israeli escalation in Jerusalem and affirming that there is no alternative to the two-state solution to end “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”.
Wafa News Agency
R.S