❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PLO:  ISRAEL  GOVERNMENT  ‘FULLY  RESPONSIBLE’  FOR  TODDLER’S  DEATH
July 31, 2015
BETHLEHEM — The PLO holds the Israeli government “fully responsible” for the death of a toddler in an arson attack carried out Friday by suspected Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, an official said.
____”We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the brutal assassination of the toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha,” PLO official Saeb Erekat said in a statement.
[. . . .]
Israeli settlers smashed the windows of two homes in the Palestinian village of Duma near Nablus before throwing flammable liquids and Molotov cocktails inside, a local resident told Ma’an.
____Ali Saad Dawabsha, one-and-a-half years old, was trapped inside the house and died shortly after sustaining serious burns. . . .
(More. . .)

❷ From ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
Based on report from Amnesty International
BLACK  FRIDAY  IN  GAZA
Robyn Connelly-Webster
July 29, 2015
Israeli troops committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during and after ‘Black Friday’ on 1 August in last year’s Gaza war, according to a report released Wednesday by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture.
____In Rafah between the 1st and 4th of August 2014, Israeli forces killed at least 135 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, in their search for captured Israeli soldier, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin. A ceasefire had been called shortly before his capture on 1 August, leading many Palestinian civilians to believe it was safe to return to their homes. The intense attacks subsequently faced by local residents were unexpected and likened by one eyewitness to ‘a machine making mincemeat out of people without mercy’.
(More. . .)

❸ From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
ISRAELI  POLICE  LOCK  GATES  OF  MUSLIMS’  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE
July 31, 2015
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM ― The Israeli police on early Friday morning closed all the gates of Muslims’ holy al-Aqsa Mosque in an attempt to tighten noose around Muslims’ neck.
____The Israeli occupation police claimed they have opted for the decision after they were updated on the intents of Arab youths to instigate “disorder” during prayer times.
____Observers said the move comes as part of Israeli endeavors to mobilize military reinforcement in anticipation of escalating tension.
____Violent confrontations are very likely to flare up following Friday prayers after Israeli fanatics burned a Palestinian child to death.
(More. . .)

❹ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA.
ISRAELI  FORCES  HALT  CONSTRUCTION  OF  WATER  WELL  IN  NORTHERN  JORDAN  VALLEY  VILLAGE
July 30, 2015
NORTHERN JORDAN VALLEY, (WAFA) – Israeli forces Thursday morning ordered halting the construction of a water well in Kardala, a village in the northern Jordan Valley near the city of Tubas, said a municipal source.
____Mayor of al-Maleh ‘Aref Daraghmeh . . . . added this was the second time he received a stop construction order for this well in particular, purportedly for being constructed without proper license.
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❺ Opinion
From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
ISRAEL’S  DESIGNS  TO  NEUTRALIZE  PALESTINIAN  DEMOGRAPHIC  ADVANTAGE
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Palestine
July 15, 2015
Israeli leaders and strategists readily admit that the Palestinian demographic growth in mandatory Palestine (between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean) constitutes an existential long-term peril for Israel and Zionism.
____It is widely believed that within this proscribed geographical area (mandatory Palestine), Palestinian population is either equal or will soon be equal to the Jewish population.
(More. . .)
Khalid Amayreh is a veteran Palestinian journalist and current affairs political commentator living in occupied Palestine.

“DUSK,”  BY  ABDEL  RAHIM  AL-SHEIKH
there is a bird, alone. . .alone and measuring the may sun with
the beating of his wings,
more eager than the east, he grooms, speeds past, clips the mountain
crest, a feather harp,
known to lovers by his eyelashes, his fierce dance, his acrobat desire, on
raffia rope, his two black feet,
and all is fleeting but him, the camera shutter, the full rainbow. . .
a world without end or sorrow,
and he is not the night warden, does not tell each morning of the night
returning at sunset,
as the night will always return, and the feather harp. . . a lover out of
a luck and a luck out of love,
a meeting point, a river, a fire, a brink of all things, again and again
and again,
his feints and flits are far from tender. . . he settles on her breast,
as round as the world,
holding in his butterflies, a blanket for the grieving, his partner in sleep,
and his dreams are aches which march onward, and there are no
maps for the crossing, and she warns him:
that child, your sea, is taking off his shoes, is leaning on the
mountains of the moon,
a strait where paths break, a quenching blue, a clouded pearl. . .
oh his fire! oh his flute!
oh the changing world. . .
and who executes the final turn!

Abdel Rahim al-Sheikh from Jerusalem, teaches philosophy, history, and creative writing at Bir Zeit University and the Qattan Centre in Ramallah, and is the author of many literary and academic books.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Amazon.com.