❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL ISSUES MULTIPLE DEMOLITION ORDERS TO BEDOUINS NEAR JERUSALEM
July 9, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israel’s Civil Administration on Thursday delivered dozens of eviction and stop-work orders to Palestinian Bedouins east of Jerusalem, a lawyer told Ma’an.
____Bassab Bahar, who chairs an East Jerusalem committee to protect Palestinian land, said Civil Administration officers accompanied by Israel’s military raided the Abu al-Nawwar dwellings, which house members of the al-Jahalin Bedouin community.
(More. . .)

❷ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
HUNDREDS PREVENTED FROM CROSSING TO JERUSALEM FOR FRIDAY PRAYERS
July 10, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces deployed at a main checkpoint in northern Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank prevented hundreds of Palestinians from crossing into Jerusalem Friday morning, due to recently enforced entry restrictions based on age.
____Israeli forces prevented women between the ages of 16 and 30 from crossing to Jerusalem without permits, as well as men from 30 to 50 years old.
____Children under 12 and men above 50 were allowed to enter without permits, in addition to women above 30.
____Men between the ages of 12 and 30 were reportedly barred entrance to Jerusalem.
(More. . .)

❸ From THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
ISRAELI FACEBOOK USERS LAUNCH ‘DEATH TO ARABS’ CAMPAIGN
July 9, 2015
A number of Israeli activists have launched a racist campaign against Arabs on Facebook, calling it “Death to Arabs”, Quds Press reported on Wednesday.
____Quds Press said that the Israeli news website Walla had interviewed a number of the organisers, who added this phrase beside their names on Facebook.
____The Israeli website interviewed a 14-year-old Jewish Israeli named Ran. He said: “It is my full right to write whatever I want instead of my name on Facebook,” Ran told Walla. “I think it is time to disclose the truth,” he added, “all Arabs [in Israel] must not be here.”
(More. . .)
(Background. . .)

❹ From MONDOWEISS
REPORT FROM RAMALLAH: HOW PALESTINE IS TODAY
Francesca Borri
July 9, 2015
Amid the shrubs you glimpse something black. You glimpse a rifle barrel. And you get it. Out your taxi window you notice smoke on your right, but it’s not the typical clearing of undergrowth burning in a distant field. It’s tear gas. In the middle of the white cloud there are 13-year olds with slings and keffiyehs. Slim. Fast.
____No, this isn’t traffic, it’s clashes. But you are the only one who looks. Everyone else is in their car, headphones on, texting.
____“Step away!” your driver shouts—not to a soldier though, to a kid. Palestinians honk. They are running out of patience. Their horns are saying, “Let’s go, yalla. It’s late.”
(More. . .)

❺ Opinion
From AL-MONITOR PALESTINE PULSE
WILL ISRAEL INVADE WEST BANK?
Adnan Abu Amer
July 9, 2015
In November 2014, Amin Maqboul, the secretary-general of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, revealed that an official Israeli threat was made to the Palestinian Authority of a total invasion and military control of Ramallah.
____Tension escalated between both parties and relations seem to have reached a dead end following the announcement of the Israeli elections’ results in March, which resulted in the formation of the most extreme right-wing coalition in Israeli history, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
____Fatah spokesman Ahmad Assaf said March 10 that Israel had made a second threat to entirely occupy the West Bank again . . .
____The third Israeli threat was reported by Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper June 14, which quoted an anonymous source close to the Palestinian presidency stating that an anonymous high-ranking Israeli security official threatened to occupy the West Bank in 24 hours . . .
____Adnan Abu Amer is dean of the Faculty of Arts and head of the Press and Information Section at Al Ummah University Open Education as well as a lecturer there in the history of the Palestinian issue, national security, political science and Islamic civilization. He holds a doctorate in political history from Damascus University
(More. . .)

“PSALMS OF THE PALESTINIANS,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM

From here
From this purgatory
Of sorrow
In the Holy Land
The orphaned birds beseech
Mankind
From here
From Jenin
From Old Jerusalem
Alleluia.

Once
A Gaza tune of yearning
Played
Once
The sad refrain
Kindled tragedy
In refugee tents
Once
In Jerusalem
The little ones changed
We shall return
We shall return
Alleluia.

The birds nest on our roof
The sparrow flies
In the horizon
And in exile
Under the hot sun
In the wind
Hearts―eyes
Implored:
God of glory
Return us
Our trial
Has gone on too long!
Alleluia―Alleluia

And then it happened
The metallic eagles swept down
They did not bring the sons of Zion
To Zion
Not the remaining crowds
They did not bring
Pious psalms
To the wailing wall
God of Glory!
What did they bring?
Do not ask me
For in my voice a pagan flame
Burns
And listen O God of Glory
Listen to the outcry of a dispossessed people
We have been tested long enough
We have carried the weight of centuries
Long enough
―Why aren’t you convinced?―
Our days of trial have been too long
So
Return us―Return us
Alleluia―Alleluia―Alleluia.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY OF THE SUN: POETRY OF THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970. Available from Amazon.

Obituary for Samih al-Qasim (August 20, 2014)