❶ From: INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
SOLDIERS  KIDNAP  EIGHT  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  TWO  CHILDREN,  IN  AL-AQSA
August 04, 2015
Israeli soldiers attacked, on Tuesday morning, dozens of Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards, in occupied East Jerusalem, and kidnapped eight Palestinians, including two children. At least two were injured, and hospitalized.
____The assaults took place after dozens of Israeli fanatics stormed the courtyards of the mosque, under heavy police and army protection, while carrying Israeli flags, and harassed dozens of worshipers.
____Six of the kidnapped Palestinians are guards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque . . . . The soldiers also kidnapped two Palestinian children. . . .
____Two mosque guards . . . were moved to a Palestinian hospital in occupied Jerusalem, after the soldiers violently assaulted them.
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❷ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  AUTHORITIES  DELIVER  DEMOLITION  ORDERS  TO  BEDOUIN  FAMILIES
Aug. 3, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces delivered demolition warrants to Palestinian Bedouin families in the Jabal al-Baba neighborhood of al-Eizariya, east of Jerusalem, on Monday.
____A spokesman of the Jabal al-Baba community, Atallah Mazarah, told Ma’an that seven families were notified that their corrugated metal homes would be demolished. . . .
____The seven homes house around 50 people, most of whom are children.
____Since 2014, Israel has demolished 15 corrugated metal homes in Jabal al-Baba, leaving dozens of people homeless.
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❸ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  DENIES  WEST  BANK-BASED  FOOTBALL  TEAM  ENTRY  TO  GAZA
Aug. 3, 2015
JERUSALEM ― The Israeli authorities on Sunday denied Palestinian footballers from the occupied West Bank visa permits to enter Gaza to face a rival team in the first leg of a cup competition, the Palestinian Football Association said.
____The Israeli authorities denied the players and managers of Ahli al-Khalil, based in Hebron, visas to enter Gaza to play Ittihad al-Shujaiyeh at the Yarmouk stadium for the first leg of the Palestine Cup.
____The PFA decried the move by Israeli authorities as “racist policies towards Palestinian sports.”
____The entry permits were reportedly denied due to “security reasons,” the PFA added, without elaborating
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❹ From: AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
DESPITE  PAYING  TAXES,  MANY  JERUSALEMITES  STILL  WITHOUT  BASIC  SERVICES
Aziza Nofal
August 2, 2015
JERUSALEM — After Hanadi Yaacoub, a Jerusalemite from Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, married a West Bank resident, she had to move to the Kafr Aqab neighborhood. . . located outside the Israeli West Bank barrier that surrounds and separates Jerusalem from the West Bank. . . . her husband could not live with Yaacoub in Jerusalem because he does not hold a Jerusalem ID. If Yaacoub lives in the areas that do not fall under the Jerusalem municipality’s jurisdiction, she will lose her Jerusalem ID.
____Kafr Aqab is under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem municipality, which requires a proof of residency in the Jerusalem municipal boundaries to preserve the Jerusalem ID. It is located outside the Qalandia checkpoint. West Bank residents cannot cross this checkpoint, which is why Yaacoub settled in Kafr Aqab, outside the checkpoint, so that her husband can move freely.
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❺ Opinion
From: PALESTINE-ISRAEL JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS & CULTURE
LEGALIZING  THE  ILLEGAL
Ziad AbuZayyad
2015
The Israeli High Court’s decision, issued April 15, 2015, to apply the Absentee Property Law of 1950 to properties in East Jerusalem owned by Palestinians living in the West Bank, considering them absentee property, is nothing more than another tool to allow the occupation to loot Palestinian property, in the West Bank in general and in Jerusalem in particular, for the benefit of Jewish Israeli citizens.
____The final decision of the court confirmed the constitutionality of applying the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem, even as it talked extensively about the problems and complications that can result from applying this law in areas occupied in 1967, especially with regard to properties belonging to Palestinian residents of the West Bank.
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“TO JERUSALEM,” BY YUSUF HAMDAN
You came to me, chained,
Carried forcibly.
You came
Flowing, like the tears of a wounded heart.
And yet, I will not meet you.
Forgive me,
For today, you are occupied!

Have you indeed come to me?
In my passion, I prayed often
Without a “Rock,”
And when I found no water,
I simulated the ritual ablution;
And when you finally came to me, I vowed:
I will not accept you occupied!

I want you to be a Kaaba for the people of the earth,
A spacious house,
Without guards;
I love you . . . a voice from a minaret,
The sound of horns
Mingled with church bells.
I love you, a jasmine in the open air,
But I have sworn, yes I have,
I will not accept you occupied!

From: THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982.
―Available from Palestine Online Store.
Also in: Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture. Vol.14 No.1 2007.
Yusuf Hamdan was born in 1942 in the Triangle area of Palestine. He lived in Haifa in the early ‘60s and taught in a nearby Arabic school. He published his poems in al-Jadid, al-Ittihad, and al-Ghad, and lost his teaching position because of his poetry. In 1970 he left Israel for the US, where he presently lives and works.