❶ from +972
ISIS EXECUTES THREE ASYLUM SEEKERS DEPORTED BY ISRAEL
Video by extremist Sunni group shows execution of three Eritrean asylum seekers coerced into leaving Israel last year.
Haggai Matar
April 21, 2015
At least three Eritrean asylum seekers who lived in Israel and were deported to a third country were executed by Islamic State militants in Libya this past week, according to family and friends who recognized them in a video released by the extremist Sunni group. The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants is checking the possibility that additional Eritreans deported by Israel were also executed.
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background from THE GUARDIAN
ISRAEL TO DEPORT ERITREAN AND SUDANESE ASYLUM SEEKERS TO THIRD COUNTRIES
“Eritreans and Sudanese are entitled to collective protection under the 1951 UN refugee convention, to which Israel is a signatory, because their lives would be in danger if they were sent back to their countries of origin.”
ISRAEL PM: ILLEGAL AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS THREATEN IDENTITY OF JEWISH STATE
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❷ from MONDOWEISS
A TALE OF TWO SUSIYAS, OR HOW A PALESTINIAN VILLAGE WAS DESTROYED UNDER THE BANNER OF ISRAELI ARCHEOLOGY –
Allison Deger
April 20, 2015
Hiam al-Nawaja dreams to live in what she calls a “normal house.” The 23-year old mother of three small children and sheepherder manages in a cinder block frame insulated with a tarp. The interior is no larger than a generous two-door garage. Her modest home is typical in Susiya, a pastoral Palestinian village set in the rolling south Hebron Hills in the West Bank; all of the 45 families that live in Susiya reside under plastic and concrete.
___Yet a few short decades ago Susiya’s residents had sturdy stone structures built over ancient caves on a hilltop one kilometer from where their town stands today. The former location, “old Susiya,” is close enough that al-Nawaja can see bulldozed remains from her kitchen window. It was destroyed in 1986 when Israel dismantled the town’s mosque to uncover an ancient Jewish synagogue dating back to the sixth century.
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(and More –videos)

❸ from ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
ISRAEL SENDS MESSAGE TO EAST JERUSALEM’S ISSAWIYA
April 21, 2015
Jerusalem municipality officials, heavily guarded by a large contingent of police and border police officers, invaded the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya Tuesday morning.
___The officials took photos of homes built in Issawiya without Israeli-issued building permits, a sure sign that home demolition orders will be on the way.
___The invasion, however, was further about showing Issawiya residents that Israel controls the area.
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❹ from PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAEL ISSUES ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION ORDERS AGAINST 41 PALESTINIAN DETAINEES
Ramallah (WAFA)
April 21, 2015
Israeli authorities Tuesday issued administrative detention orders against 41 Palestinian prisoners, including 26 Palestinians from Hebron district, Tuesday reported the Palestine Prisoners’ Club (PPC).
The detainees were sentenced for a period ranging between two months and six months in administrative detention. Twelve of the detainees received detention orders without charge or trial for the first time, whereas the remaining 29 detainees had their administrative detention sentence renewed for the second or third time.
___Administrative detention is the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial and on the basis of secret evidence for up to six month periods, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military courts.
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❺ from THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
OPINION/EDITORIAL
WE CANNOT LIBERATE PALESTINE WITH COLONIZED MINDS
Haidar Eid
April 20, 2015
The inability — or unwillingness — of both the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-led administration in Gaza to provide a relatively acceptable example of good governance based on giving ordinary people a say in decisions that affect them means that serious soul-searching is required among those holding leadership positions in Palestine.
___The alternative to the Fatah-Hamas rift is not, as both parties argue, new elections for the PA’s presidency and the Palestinian Legislative Council, within the framework of the disastrous Oslo accords.
___Rather, it is a form of mass democracy, in which all Palestinian refugees (living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, inside present-day Israel and in the diaspora) can participate by taking common action for broader goals.
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“MARTYR,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
When they found him
he had become an emerald flame;
as when they lifted his arms they found
sheaves of wheat where a heart should be;
and they say those sheaves were whispering
beneath his shirt; and they say the wild birds
ferried his blood to his family, drop by drop;
and they say he will come back, suspended
in the hidden tree at the burning heart of volcanoes
and that his mother will fold him in her arms.
But when they found him he was an emerald flame,
so they stitched together rose petals for a shroud
and smoothed out the sky to keep him warm
and for a pillows, they lifted down the sun
and laid it beneath his head.
____Trans. By John Glenday

Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awarq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Amazon.com.
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