❶ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA.
ISRAEL RAZES LAND IN HEBRON, ORDERS SOCCER FIELD CONSTRUCTION IN BETHLEHEM TO STOP
July 22, 2015
HEBRON ―Israeli forces Wednesday bulldozed around 20-dunums of Palestinian-owned agricultural land in the town of Beit Ola . . . and ordered ending the construction of a soccer field to the west of Bethlehem.
____ [. . . .] a large Israeli force accompanied by three bulldozers stormed an area in the town and razed around 10 dunums of land planted with olive trees. The land belongs to Farid al-Amlah. . . .
____The land was razed under the pretext of being located in ‘state land’ and as a prelude to take over it from its original owners.
____Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities ordered to stop the construction work on a soccer field in the village of Wadi Fukin to the west of Bethlehem.
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❷ From MONDOWEISS
PHOTO ESSAY: A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM’S MARTYR CEMETERY
Rebecca George
July 21, 2015
Salah Abu Laban remembers sitting down for an Iftar meal when he was a teenager, and hearing his cousin’s name called over the mosque’s loudspeaker. . . in December 2000, there was a heavy Israeli military presence near the main cemetery on the other side of town, and it was too dangerous to carry Abed’s body there. So a man near Dheishe Refugee Camp donated a piece of land, and the Martyr’s cemetery outside Dheishe was born.
____For some Muslims around the world, the first morning of Eid Al-Fitr is a time to visit the graves of deceased relatives and loved ones. In Palestine, this means visiting the graves of those who have been martyred during the conflict with Israel. . . [many in] the Martyr’s Cemetery . . .
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❸ From AL-MONITOR: PALESTINE PULSE
ENGLISH STUDY AN ESCAPE FOR GAZANS
Rasha Abou Jalal
July 20, 2015
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — More and more young Gazans are determined to master the English language — the key, they say, to getting jobs, studying abroad and conveying the Palestinians’ suffering to the world.
____Huda Droll, an American teacher at Amideast in Gaza [said], “There is a remarkable and constant rise in demand for English learning among Palestinians, in an effort to get a scholarship to study abroad, get a job or to discuss with the people of the world the atrocities committed by Israel against them.”
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(Related―YES PROGRAM)

❹ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA.
ISRAEL DETAINS SEVEN PALESTINIANS, SHOOTS YOUTH DURING PREDAWN RAIDS
July 22, 2015
JENINE ― Israeli forces detained overnight seven Palestinians, including a journalist and a disabled man, and shot and injured a youth during predawn raids into various West Bank districts. . . .
____Israeli forces raided early Wednesday Burqin village to the west of Jenin. . .
____Forces shot and injured a local with a live bullet in the chest during the clashes. The man was identified as Muhammad ‘Alawna, 21, who was admitted into a local hospital for surgery on his chest.
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❺ Opinion
From PALESTINE CHRONICLE
ISRAEL’S ENDLESS MISERY FOR GAZA IS NO POLICY AT ALL
Jonathan Cook
July 22, 2015
For those trying to read developments between Israel and Gaza over the past weeks, the picture has been unusually puzzling.
____A month ago European diplomats and Palestinian officials in the West Bank suggested that Israel and Hamas were taking “baby steps”. . .
____Then earlier this month, as an attack blamed on the extremists of Islamic State (ISIS) killed dozens in Sinai, an Israeli general accused Hamas of supplying the weapons. . .
____A short time later, a group of Israeli army commanders urged the easing of the near-decade blockade of Gaza as a way to end Hamas’ isolation.
[. . . .]
____The uncertainty reflects Israel’s increasingly convoluted efforts to “manage” Gaza faced with the fallout from its series of attacks on the enclave beginning in late 2008 with Operation Cast Lead and culminating in last year’s Protective Edge.
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“IF ONLY,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM
My homeland, an earring dangling
from the ear of the earth;
my homeland . . . a woman
whose thighs are opened by the western wind;
my homeland, the oars of the boat;
my homeland, the absent son:
Will you one day rouse what is in me?
Will you become . . . an ordinary country?

From Al-Qasim, Samih. SADDER THAN WATER. New and Selected Poems. Trans. Nazih Kasis and Adina Hoffman. Jerusalem: Ibis Editions, 2008.
About Samih Al-Qasim;  Obituary, August 20, 2014
About Ibis Editions.  Available from Amazon.