❶ Israeli forces shoot dead two boys, aged 13 and 15, in Gaza
❷ Israeli airstrike kills pregnant woman, 2-year-old girl in Gaza City
❸ Palestinian soccer scores goal in venue dispute
❹ Analysis: Why one Jerusalem street has seen so many stabbings
❺ Opinion: A different kind of intifada
❻ Poetry by Samih Al-Qasim
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(Please read “Purpose” above. Thank you for “following.”)
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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  SHOOT  DEAD  TWO  BOYS,  AGED  13  AND  15,  IN  GAZA
Oct. 11, 2015
GAZA CITY — Israeli forces on Saturday shot and killed two Palestinian boys, aged 13 and 15, at a demonstration in the southern Gaza Strip.
____The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Marwan Barbakh, 13, and Khalil Othman, 15, were shot dead during the protest to the east of Khan Younis. . . .
____At least 15 others were injured during the protest, the ministry said, although it did not provide further details.
____The Palestinian Red Crescent later said that its ambulance crews had treated seven Palestinians shot with live rounds across the Gaza Strip, in addition to 21 who suffered excessive tear gas inhalation.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  AIRSTRIKE  KILLS  PREGNANT  WOMAN,  2-YEAR-OLD  GIRL  IN  GAZA  CITY
Oct. 11, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — An Israeli airstrike targeted a building near a home in Gaza City during the earliest hours of Sunday morning, killing a pregnant woman and her 2-year-old daughter after their home collapsed, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza said.
____Ashraf al-Qidra said the woman, identified as Nour Rasmi Hassan was five months pregnant during the time of her death, her daughter Rahaf Yahya Hassan was also killed, and three other family members were injured when their house was damaged from the airstrike near the al-Maslakh mosque in southern Gaza City.
____Hours before the airstrike,sirens sounded across southern Israel, as a single rocket was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome in an area south of Ashkelon.
____No Injuries were reported.
____According to a statement from the Israeli army, Israeli forces responded to Gaza’s rocket with an airstrikes on “two Hamas weapon manufacturing facilities in the northern Gaza Strip.”
____The statement made no mention of any deaths or damages to civilian homes.
More . . .
❸ AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
PALESTINIAN  SOCCER  SCORES  GOAL  IN  VENUE  DISPUTE
Ahmad Melhem
(Ahmad Melhem is a Palestinian journalist and photographer based in Ramallah for Al-Watan News.)
Oct.7, 2015
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian soccer may have won its biggest victory over its Saudi rival before the teams even enter the pitch.
____The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has decided that the two national teams may play the second of two matches in the 2018 World Cup and the 2019 Asian Cup qualifications in Palestine after all, revoking an earlier decision to find a less controversial alternative. The reversal came after an Oct. 6 meeting in Zurich between FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the heads of the Palestinian and Saudi Arabian football associations, Jibril Rajoub and Ahmed Eid al-Harbi.
More . . .
❹ Analysis
+972 BLOG
WHY  ONE  JERUSALEM  STREET  HAS  SEEN  SO  MANY  STABBINGS
Yonathan Mizrachi
(Yonathan Mizrachi is an archaeologist and the executive director of Emek Shaveh.)
Oct. 11, 2015
For Israel and settler organizations, creating a Jewish identity and presence on the access road to the Western Wall is very important. Palestinians, on the other hand, view it as a dangerous provocation.
____The many stabbings in Jerusalem’s Old City in recent weeks have taken place in one precise location: Ha-Gai Street, or Al-Wad Street in Arabic. While the walled city is relatively small, it is interesting to note why the political and violent struggle over Jerusalem focalizes on its most heavily guarded street.
More . . .
❺ Opinion
AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
A  DIFFERENT  KIND  OF  INTIFADA
Daoud Kuttab
(Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist, a media activist and a columnist for Palestine Pulse. He is former Ferris Professor of journalism at Princeton University.)
Oct. 8, 2015
The ultimate direction of the current violent escalation in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is a mystery. Is it the long-anticipated third intifada? Or is it merely a short-term spike in the escalation of violence?
____One thing seems clear: There is no way of knowing or predicting the depth, length or nature of what happens when people lose hope. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to wash his hands of the 1993 Oslo Accord — which he himself had signed 22 years earlier — might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
____Without any peace process in sight and with the young Palestinian population seeing no future, it is not surprising that people are revolting.
More . . .

Blogger’s Note: This poem, and many others from the years shortly after the 1967 war seem to be more timely and urgent now than at any time since they were written.

“A MARTYR’S ELEGY,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM
Leave the martyr shrouded in his clothes;
Rest him at the foot of the mountain, it knows his sorrow.
Don’t bury him; his wounds
Tell the will of his love and suffering.
Do you hear? Let him depart from his friends,
A bleeding eagle among the rocks.
Rest him in the sun; a wind
From the land of his youth will caress his face.
Don’t close his eyes; a last
Glimmer of light is still in them.
His call reverberates in the golden valleys:
“You who fear death, I feared it not;
Take me to my home to rest my cheek
On its threshold and to kiss its door.
Let me see my vineyard
One last time.”

From: A  LOVER  FROM  PALESTINE  AND  OTHER  POEMS:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  PALESTINIAN  POETRY.  Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
About Samih Al-Qasim
Qasim in academic journals
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