❶ Israeli airstrike kills 10-year-old Palestinian, injures 1
. . . . . ❶―(ᴀ) Hours After Her Brother Was Killed In Israeli Bombardment; Child Dies Of Her Wounds In Gaza
❷ Keeping traditional music alive in Gaza
❸ Israeli police detain 250 Palestinians working illegally in Israel
❹ Israel’s education minister wants to reduce Jewish history to pogroms
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THE CASE FOR CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL
❻ Poetry by Mu’in Bseiso
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❶ ISRAELI  AIRSTRIKE  KILLS  10-YEAR-OLD  PALESTINIAN,  INJURES  1
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
12 Mar. 2016
A ten-year-old Palestinian was killed and his sister seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike launched early Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip after rockets were fired from the besieged enclave.
___Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra confirmed the death of Yasin Suleiman Abu Khusah,10, and told Ma’an his six-year-old sister Israa had sustained serious head injuries during the strike.
___A Ma’an reporter based in Gaza said the children were in their house at the time of the strike .    MORE . . .   
. . . . . ❶―(ᴀ) HOURS  AFTER  HER  BROTHER  WAS  KILLED  IN  ISRAELI  BOMBARDMENT;  CHILD  DIES  OF  HER  WOUNDS  IN  GAZA
IMEMC NEWS
12 Mar. 2016
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has reported, Saturday, that a child, six years of age, who was seriously injured after the Israeli Air Force fired a missile into their home in northern Gaza, killing her brother, died of her serious wounds.      MORE . . .
❷ KEEPING  TRADITIONAL  MUSIC  ALIVE  IN  GAZA
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
Rami Almeghari
8 Mar. 2016
They come from different backgrounds and have vastly different musical experience. But the 13 members of Dawaween, a newly formed band set for only its fourth concert in Gaza on 10 March, are united around one aim: the preservation and popularization of traditional Palestinian music.
___“Our music is pretty lively,” said Abdelraouf al-Bilbeisi, the band’s 30-year-old oud player, who spent the previous nine years performing with a wedding band around the Gaza Strip. “It deserves to be played on stage.”      MORE . . .
❸ ISRAELI  POLICE  DETAIN  250  PALESTINIANS  WORKING  ILLEGALLY  IN  ISRAEL
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
11 Mar. 2016
Israeli forces detained at least 250 Palestinian workers without work permits inside Israel by the end of the day Thursday, Israeli police said. . . .
___Israeli forces pledged to continue the search campaign for Palestinians working illegally in Israel “in order to maintain public safety in the country,” al-Samri said.  MORE . . .

❹ ISRAEL’S  EDUCATION  MINISTER  WANTS  TO  REDUCE  JEWISH  HISTORY  TO  POGROMS
+972 BLOG
Gil Gertel
12 Mar. 2016
A new committee is tasked with exposing Israeli students to Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish history. The problem? There is more than one narrative.      MORE . . . 
❺ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  THE  CASE  FOR  CULTURAL  BOYCOTT  OF  ISRAEL 
THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER 
Ben White
17 Feb. 2016
The case for a boycott of Israel is straightforward, based on: the reality of Israel’s policies of colonialism and apartheid; the Palestinians’ appeal for solidarity, including the 2005 call for a global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign; and the effectiveness of BDS as a tactic.
___But what about a cultural boycott? This is a problem for some people who agree with the above argument – yet it is also based on a similar, logical argument.      MORE . . .

(Note: as is often the case in Palestinian poetry, the flower is the metaphor for Palestine over the centuries.)

“ALEXANDER  AND  THE  SUN  FLOWER,”  BY  MUEEN  BESSISSOU  (Mu’in  Bseiso)  
The auction began,
And she was carried on a litter to Alexander’s tent.
They brought her the milk of a deer and a lioness.
And so she washed.
She was perfumed with incense;
And when they blew the horn,
A bed was fetched.
And Alexander entered.
Joys of Alexander!
He slept with her
Until the cock crowed,
Then discarded her,
To be bestowed on a king
Who abandoned her after two nights.
She was carried on a camel
And bestowed on a prince.
The incense garden burned down.
Then she was bestowed on a minister,
And down to the fifty-first man in his entourage.
And when the sea gazelle was stabbed,
And the moon became an eye of glass,
Her navel became a wine pot.
Kings and rebels drank to her health,
She learned how to lie with them.
Rainbow! Stay this winter from our skies.
Your red and blue and green
Stain our face, like mud and glue.

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 Mu’in Bseiso (1926 – January 23, 1984)