❶ From LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION
TRIBUTE TO DR TAWFIQ NASSER
“Long and faithful service” to the Augusta Victoria Hospital
May 19, 2015
With great sadness The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has learned of the death of DR TAWFIQ A. NASSER, the Chief Executive Officer of the AUGUSTA VICTORIA HOSPITAL IN JERUSALEM. Dr Nasser passed away on the morning of 16 May 2015. He had been the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer since 2001 and was instrumental in shaping its medical orientation.
___“Dr Nasser was a man of compassion and service who cared deeply about others,” LWF General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge wrote in a condolence letter to Dr Nasser’s family. “In the LWF, we are particularly grateful for the long and faithful service Dr Nasser gave in the development of the Augusta Victoria Hospital.”
___Dr Nasser, who was born in the AVH in 1964 when the hospital still had a maternity ward, had been the hospital’s administrative director since 1997. He took over as Chief Executive Officer in 2001, at the age of 36. Dr Nasser shaped the hospital into the leading center for nephrology and oncology in the Palestinian territories.
(More. . .)
In addition, see related story below picture at end of this post.

❷From +972
FOR JERUSALEM’S PALESTINIANS, A CITY OF POVERTY AND DIVISION
Natasha Roth
May 17, 2015
More than one quarter of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents live behind the concrete separation barrier; Israel has revoked the residency of over 14,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites since ‘reunifying’ the city in 1967, including 107 last year alone.
(More. . .)

❸ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA.
ISRAEL DEMOLISHES BUILDING, FOUR SHOPS IN EAST JERUSALEM
May 20, 2015
Bulldozers working for the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem Wednesday demolished a two-storey building under construction and a number of stores in Wadi Qadoom neighborhood in East Jerusalem, under the pretext of ‘unlicensed building’.
___WAFA correspondent said that an Israeli police force, accompanied with bulldozers and staff from the so-called West Jerusalem municipality, imposed a tight military cordon around the building and the stores before proceeding to demolish them.
___The demolished structures belonged to Abu Snaineh family.
(More. . .)

❹ From MONDOWEISS
NETANYAHU: JERUSALEM WAS ALWAYS THE CAPITAL ‘OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE ALONE’
Ben Norton
May 18, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Jerusalem has always been the capital “of the Jewish people alone, not of any other people” at a Jerusalem Day ceremony on Ammunition Hill, in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem on May 17. ___“Jerusalem won’t become once again a wounded and bisected city,” he continued. “We will forever keep Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty.”
___Netanyahu pledged to “continue to build and nurture [Jerusalem], to expand her neighborhoods.”
(More. . .)

❺ From: INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
VIDEO: SOLDIERS KIDNAP A FATHER AND HIS THREE SONS IN THEIR STORE IN JERUSALEM
Saed Bannoura May 20, 2015
Israeli soldiers invaded, Tuesday, a Palestinian store in Beit Safafa town, in occupied Jerusalem, kidnapping the store owner and his three sons, after assaulting them along with other Palestinian shoppers.
___The Arabs48 News Website published a video showing the soldiers and police assaulting the family, in addition to attacking a woman who was shopping in the store.
___The soldiers kidnapped the father, Abedrabbo Abedrabbo and his three sons, Abed, Talal and Bilal, after violently attacking and beating them.
(More. . .)

“JERUSALEM,” BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

“Let’s be the same wound if we must bleed. Let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy” ——Tommy Olofsson, Sweden

I’m not interested in
who suffered the most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
a stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddle: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Later his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot:
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
“I am native now.”
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child’s poem says,
“I don’t like wars,
they end up with monuments.”
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.
If you tilt your head just slightly
it’s ridiculous.

There’s a place in my brain
where hate won’t grow.
I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.

It’s late but everything comes next.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem” from Red Suitcase.

From LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION
FEATURE: Israeli Wall Hinders Access to Hospital’s Unique Services
LWF-run Augusta Victoria Hospital is a Link between Israelis and Palestinians
22 December 2004
Dr Tawfiq Nasser stands high up on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem and points to the distant landscape below. He indicates the long wall circling Jerusalem and extending far into northern Israel and West Jordan. From up here, from the Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH), where Nasser is Chief Executive Officer, the mighty wall looks almost harmless. Like a ribbon it winds through the hilly landscape, sometimes clearly visible, sometimes partly hidden. Yet Nasser knows firsthand how dangerous this wall is. He lives on the other side of it, and whenever conflict breaks out or the Israeli army closes the checkpoint for other reasons, Nasser is cut off from home. That is why he always has a small bag with spare clothes in his office. (More. . .)