❶ Palestinian shot dead during clashes in Bethlehem
❷ Group: Majority of Jerusalem Palestinians detained in 2015 were minors
❸ Israel to Fence Thousands of Dunams near Nablus, To Build Six Military Towers
. . . ❸― (ᴀ) Military Levels Private Lands for New Military Tower
❹ Palestinians stage sit-in to protest increased Israeli military control over Hebron
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THERE  IS  NO  ‘DAY  AFTER’  NETANYAHU
❻ Poetry by Aminah Kazak
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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  SHOT  DEAD  DURING  CLASHES  IN  BETHLEHEM
Jan. 12, 2016
Israeli forces shot and killed a young Palestinian man during clashes in Beit Jala west of Bethlehem on Tuesday afternoon, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
___The ministry said the young man, initially identified as 21-year-old Srour Ahmad Abu Srour from Aida refugee camp to Bethlehem’s north, was shot in his chest with a live round in clashes that broke out when Israeli forces raided al-Sahl street in Beit Jala.  More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
GROUP:  MAJORITY  OF  JERUSALEM  PALESTINIANS  DETAINED  IN  2015  WERE  MINORS
Jan. 10, 2016
Israeli forces detained more than 1,900 Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem in 2015, the majority of whom were minors, a prisoners’ rights group said on Sunday.
___A spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies, Riyad al-Ashqar, said in a statement that around two-thirds of those detained from the occupied city were minors, 65 of whom were put under house arrest.   More . . .
❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
ISRAEL  TO  FENCE  THOUSANDS  OF  DUNAMS  NEAR  NABLUS,  TO  BUILD  SIX  MILITARY  TOWERS
Jan.12, 2016
Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official in charge of Israeli Settlements’ file in the Palestinian Authority, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, has reported that Israel informed the Palestinian Authority of its intention to build six military towers, and to fence thousands of Dunams of Palestinian lands, in Nablus.    More . . .

. . . ❸― (ᴀ) MILITARY  LEVELS  PRIVATE  LANDS  FOR  NEW  MILITARY  TOWER
Jan. 10, 2016
Israeli forces have been leveling private Palestinian land south of the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, in preparation to build a military tower in the area, residents said.
___A resident of the village of Tuqu, Issa Froukh, told Ma’an News Agency that Israeli excavators have leveled 2.5 dunams (0.6 acres) of land since Wednesday, covering the area with cement.   More . . .
❹ MONDOWEISS
PALESTINIANS  STAGE  SIT-IN  TO  PROTEST  INCREASED  ISRAELI  MILITARY  CONTROL  OVER  HEBRON
Jan. 12, 2016
Local activists continued a sit-in on Saturday outside of an Israeli military checkpoint set up on Hebron’s al-Shuhada street in protest of the military’s total closure of the area. Al-Shuhada street, as well as the Tel Rumeida area of the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was designated a closed military zone by the Israeli army in November following increased violence in the area.
___The order was renewed earlier this month and bans all entry to the areas, apart from Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents. Palestinian residents were forced to register in order to gain access to their homes.   More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
+972 MAGAZINE
THERE  IS  NO  ‘DAY  AFTER’  NETANYAHU
Edo Konrad
Jan. 11, 2016
Short of allowing Palestinians to establish an independent state, there is nothing Netanyahu won’t do to ensure his political survival.
Liberal Israeli columnist and Channel 10′s top political commentator Raviv Drucker published a piece in Haaretz Sunday, in which he waxes optimistic about the “day after Netanyahu” and who could possibly take over and bring the Israeli Right back to its proper, “sane” place . . . .
___The power vacuum in Israeli politics has been generally attributed to the collapse of the Israeli left in recent years. The lack of a political alternative to right-wing rule certainly plays a role, but as The Times of Israel’s senior political correspondent Haviv Rettig Gur recently wrote, the Netanyahu premiership is “fast becoming the most centralized and powerful Israeli administration in generations, possibly since the indispensable ‘Old Man,’ Israel’s first prime minister David Ben Gurion.”   More . . .

“MY  LAST  DAY  WITH  AISHA,”  BY  AMINAH  KAZAK  (b. 1960)

All I can remember now are the words we didn’t speak
The winds tossed them high into the night sky
And the moon sat counting the stars
You had so much to say, but the silence deafened us
We sat, stilled by the pain
and watched Jerusalem bury her children.

I laid my hand on the small grave and let fall a single tear
Small as it was we both noticed it
I wrapped the sparrow’s broken wings and bloodied
head in my Muslim scarf,
and turned it to face Mecca
As the call of the muezzin broke on the shore of Jerusalem’s grief.

Unlike the sparrow now silent and still
you had never been free to return
in that night’s dark loneliness
You laid your aching body upon the horizon
letting your love of Palestine ignite the sky.

All I remember are the words we didn’t speak
The winds tossed them high into the heaven
and the moon sat counting the stars.

“Born in Hamilton, New Zealand, Kazak now [1992] lives in Canberra, Australia. She studied in New Zealand and has a B.A. in political science. Her interests include painting, calligraphy, music, and languages.”
ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE. Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.