❶ from +972
PHOTOS: ANSWERING TEAR GAS WITH FLOWERS
Photos and text by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org
April 14, 2015
Every Friday residents of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, along with Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, attempt to march to the village’s spring. The small spring was taken over by Israeli settlers from the nearby settlement of Halamish years ago, and the Israeli army now prevents Palestinians from reaching it.
___Before the protest this past Friday, children from Nabi Saleh placed flowers they picked from the surrounding hills into spent tear gas canisters fired at protesters in weeks past. The children of Nabi Saleh take part in the protests against the occupation on a weekly basis.
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❷ from PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: ISRAEL WILLFULLY TARGETED, MURDERED GAZA CHILDREN
By PNN/ Bethlehem/
April 19, 2015
A new report by DCIP (Defense for Children International—Palestine) titled “Operation Protective Edge: A War Waged On Gaza’s Children,” displayed documented events proving that that Israel has deliberately murdered Palestinian children in its last offensive on Gaza last summer.
___According to the report, the number of children killed in the last summer offensive on Gaza hit 535, a majority of them under the age 12. Another 3,400 children were injured – over 1,000 maimed for life. They need vital medical care unavailable because of Israel’s lawless siege – ongoing aggression by any standard with full US-led Western support.
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❸ from +972
WHEN SHOOTING A PALESTINIAN IN THE BACK IS MERELY ‘RECKLESS’
Why trust the military to investigate itself when soldiers who kill unarmed Palestinians are let off the hook time and time again?
By Alma Biblash
April 15, 2015
In January 2013, an Israeli soldier shot a 16-year-old Palestinian who posed absolutely no threat in his back. Samir Awad, from the village Budrus, didn’t survive the valiant military operation, and was killed. Last December, the High Court of Justice harshly criticized the Military Advocate General’s (MAG) handling of the case calling on it to finish its investigation.
___On Tuesday, the State announced that it would charge the soldier reckless and negligent use of a firearm. Had the incident not ended with the death of a teenager, it could have come off as no more than a silly act of mischief.
___Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which accompanied the Awad family throughout the legal process, called the decision a “new low . . .”
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❹ from PALESTINE INFORMATION CENTER
PALESTINIAN CHILD RELEASED AFTER FOUR MONTHS IN ISRAELI JAIL
April 17, 2015
RAMALLAH, (PIC) — The Israeli prison authority on Thursday afternoon released 15-year-old Khaled al-Sheikh from Ofer prison.
___The child’s father, Hosam al-Sheikh, told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) yesterday that the Israeli authorities told him of their intention to release his son.
___“His mother, brothers, and myself are currently at the Ofer jail to make the necessary arrangements for Khaled’s release and we informed the authorities on the matter,” the father said.
___Khaled, kidnapped on December 25 from Anan village in Ramallah, was sentenced to a four-month prison term and fined 2,000 shekels.
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❺ from MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES CONTINUE TO TARGET BILIN, 2 PROTESTERS SHOT
Ma’an – RAMALLAH
(Updated) April 18, 2015
Two Palestinians were shot, one with live fire, and up to 60 protesters suffered excessive tear gas inhalation when Israeli forces violently suppressed the Bilin weekly march on Friday.
___Hundreds of Palestinians are reported to have taken part in the march against the separation wall, also marking Palestinian Prisoner’s Day.
___Israeli forces fired live and rubber-coated steel bullets at the protesters as well as tear-gas canisters.
___Ahmad Mohammad Mansour, 17, was shot in the chest with a live bullet and was taken to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, while Munther Ameera was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the lower extremities and treated on the scene.
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❻ from US PALESTINAIN COMMUNITY NETWORK
#BOYCOTTCOKE: BDS FORUM IN MINNEAPOLIS APRIL 19
Sunday, April 19 at 2pm
4200 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis
In 2005, Palestinians issued a call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, because of its violations of international law and attacks on Palestinian rights. BDS is now a worldwide movement against Israeli Apartheid, and the governments, corporations and other institutions that support it. Many Twin Cities organizations have taken up this call, and will share their experiences and strategies.
(More. . .)

“INTIFADA,” BY SAMUEL HAZO

Singly at first, then doubly
then slowly by the tens or twenties,
then steadily on . . .

Interviewed
about the deathcount in Ramallah,
one sergeant said, “We’ll kill
them all, but we’ll never
forgive them for making us do it.”

Later he aimed his Uzi at a boy
armed with a stone and a slingshot,
One general claimed his soldiers
fired only rubber-coated bullets.
When asked about the difference
to the dead, he frowned and shouted,
“Their leaders and parents use
these children as human shields.”
Despite the contradicting photographs
pundits and lobbyists concurred.
After all, who could deny
that boys with all their lives
ahead of them would happily
seek execution, that mothers loved
to see their sons in open
coffins, that choosing a brave
death instead of a lifelong one
was an option for fools?

No one
would claim that occupation
to the occupied resembled daily
suffocation.
No one would add
that suffocation or the fear of it
begot a courage born
of desperation.
No one compared it
to the fate of being locked
in darkness in a stalled elevator
underground.
Like someone buried
upright and alive, anyone
trapped there would stop at nothing.

from We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon. Ed. Kamal Boullata. Northampton, MA: Interlink Pub Group Inc (March 30, 2007).
Samuel Hazo was born in Pittsburgh, July 19, 1928. The son of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, Hazo tackles themes of faith, family, and war in his poems, which are often elegiac in tone. Poet Naomi Shihab Nye noted Hazo’s poems of “immense intelligence, lyricism, and humanity” on awarding his book Just Once: New and Previous Poems (2002) the Maurice English Award for Poetry.