RAMALLAH, May 30, 2012 (WAFA) – Wednesday’s issue of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies highlighted recent Hamas and Fatah meetings to sort out issues relating to the formation of the national unity government.
The main front page article in al-Quds said the two leading factions met on Tuesday and discussed the results of the Central Elections Commission’s visit to Gaza to update the voter registry, adding that a committee to review names of members of the unity government of technocrats will meet on Tuesday.
The main headline in al-Hayat al-Jadida said Israel plans to fund a new settlement project in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan amid warnings of Israeli attempts to change the facts in al-Haram al-Sharif compound, Islam’s third holiest site, in the Old City of Jerusalem by gradually turning it into a Jewish site.
News reports in al-Ayyam featured Israeli claims that Palestinian prisoners were plotting with faction leaders in the Gaza Strip and Hebron to abduct Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them with Palestinian prisoners, rendering some terms of the recent Israeli agreement with prisoners who went on hunger strike null.
Al-Quds highlighted reports on the Flame virus, considered one of the most powerful computer viruses, targeting high-ranking official computers in the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territory and Israel.
The three dailies said Israel is expected to release on Thursday remains of 91 Palestinians killed in action since 1967 whose bodies have been kept in numbered graves in makeshift Israeli cemeteries.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported that President Mahmoud Abbas phoned Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalife Al Thani to offer condolences for the 19 people killed, including 13 children, in the fire that engulfed a mall in the Qatari capital Doha on Monday.
An op-ed in al-Ayyam daily by Ashraf Ajramy tackled Palestinian optimism regarding the latest developments in the reconciliation process and discussed the ongoing Israeli settlement activities threatening national unity. He stressed the s important role reconciliation can play in facing settlements.
R.Q./M.S.
