❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL RESTRICTS THE ENTRY OF PALESTINIANS TO JERUSALEM
July 1, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities set new restrictions Tuesday on Palestinians entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank after attacks targeting Israeli military and settlers, revoking the entry permits of hundreds set to travel during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
____The announcement by COGAT, the agency that manages civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, was the latest reversal to measures easing movement for Palestinians for Ramadan.
____The new restrictions now require a permit for women aged between 16 and 30 to enter Jerusalem on Fridays. The same applies for men aged 30-50, while those under the age of 12 and over 50 can enter without a permit.
(More. . .)

❷ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI POLICE BAN WORSHIPPERS ENTRY INTO AL-AQSA MOSQUE, PHYSICALLY ASSAULTS GIRL
July 2, 2015
Israeli police Thursday banned a Palestinian young man’s entry into Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and physically assaulted a small girl inside the Mosque compound in East Jerusalem.
____WAFA correspondent reported that police banned Tamer Shala‘ta, from Sakhnin, entry into the Mosque compound for 17 days and fined him 8,000 NIS (about $2120). . . . purportedly for chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ to protest the presence of Israeli settler groups that forced their way into the compound.
____Meanwhile, a special unit police officer physically assaulted a young girl inside the compound purportedly for shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in protest of the presence of more Israeli settler groups.
____The 10-year-old child, who remains unidentified, sustained wounds in her legs and was treated at the scene.
(More. . .)

❸ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI ARMY RAZES LAND, NOTIFIES TO DEMOLISH STRUCTURES NEAR HEBRON
July 2, 2015
Israeli army forces on Thursday razed a Palestinian-owned four-dunum area near Hebron, as well as notified to demolish a house and a water well near the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, according to local sources.
____A farmer residing east of Hebron told WAFA that an Israeli army force . . . broke into the area and razed the land of Mohammad Mustafa Jaber, a local villager. The land is close to bypass road 60.
____Meanwhile, army forces broke into the villages of Dirat and Umm Sharara, just east of the town of Yatta, and notified a local resident about their intent to demolish his house along with a water well, which he owns in the area.
(More. . .)

❹ Opinion
From ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
JERUSALEM, AWARENESS AND ENTRY PERMITS
Rasem Obeidat
June 25, 2015
[. . . .]
We are witnessing a tsunami of normalisation on the grassroots level, which particularly focuses on and in the city of Jerusalem. The real tragedy here, of course, is that this normalisatin is sponsored and embraced by official Palestinian bodies. Normalisation works against the interests of the Palestinian people. . . . Intellectually, culturally, politically and ideologically, the opposition has not worked effectively, particularly with young Palestinians, against the risk of normalisation and its occupation of Palestinian consciousness.
____In such a situation, and with the weak and fragmented internal situation of the Palestinians who are divided against themselves, Palestinians are inciting more against each other than against the occupation.
(More. . .)
VIDEO: Interview with Jerusalem affairs minister, Khaled Abu Arafe

❺ Opinion
From ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
NEW EVIDENCE FROM 1967 WAR REVEALS ISRAELI ATROCITIES
Ilan Pappe
June 23, 2015
In the wake of the June 1967 war, the Israeli author Amos Oz, then a reserve soldier in the Israeli army, together with a friend collated interviews with Israeli soldiers who participated in the war and asked them about the emotions the fighting triggered in them. The interviews were published as a book titled Conversations with Soldiers . . . .
The military censor . . . erased 70 percent of the evidence since he claimed it would have harmed Israel’s international image.
This month an industrious Israeli filmmaker, Mor Loushi, is showing her new documentary based on most of this erased material. . . .
The aim is to cleanse the tormented soul of the victimizer and there is nothing like a good confession to make it all go away.
(More. . .)

“MY SAD CITY,” BY FADWA TUQAN
(The day of Zionist Occupation, June 27, 1967)

The day we saw death and betrayal,
The tide ebbed.
The windows of the sky closed,
And the city held its breath.
The day the waves were vanquished, the day
The ugliness of the abyss revealed its true face,
Hope turned to ashes,
And gaging on disaster,
My sad city choked.

Gone were the children and the songs,
There was no shadow, no echo.
Sorrow crawled naked in my city,
With bloodied footsteps,
Silence reigned in the city,
Silence like crouching mountains,
Mysterious like the night, tragic silence,
Burdened,
Weighed down with death and defeat.
Alas! My sad and silent city.
Can it be true that in the season of harvest,
Grain and fruit have turned to ashes?
Alas! That this should be the fruit of all the journeying!
―Translated by A.M. Elmesseri

From BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND: PALESTINE ISREL POETS RESPOND TO THE STRUGGLE. Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from B&N.
Obituary for Fadwa Tuqan, 2003.