❶ Five Detainees Begin Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails
❷ Israeli Forces Detain Seven Palestinians from West Bank
❸ PICTURES: The occupation forces demolish a playground and a room and sweep an agricultural land in Silwan
. . . . . ❸―(ᴀ) Israeli forces level Palestinian playground in ongoing Silwan demolitions
❹ Jordan Valley village at risk of ‘forcible transfer,’ warns UN
❺ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  HOW  IMPUNITY  DEFINES  ISRAEL  AND  VICTIMIZES  PALESTINIANS
❻ Poetry by Khalil Hawi
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❶ FIVE  DETAINEES  BEGIN  HUNGER  STRIKE  IN  ISRAELI  JAILS
PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA  
March 29, 2016
Four Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails have entered into a hunger strike in protest of being detained without a charge or trial, while a fifth started a hunger strike in protest of being held in solitary confinement, according to the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission.
___Kareem Ajwa, an attorney with the Commission, said the four detainees . . .  recently entered a hunger strike in protest of being held under administrative detention, without a charge or trial.       MORE . . .  

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  SEVEN  PALESTINIANS  FROM  WEST  BANK
PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
March 29, 2016
Israeli forces Tuesday detained seven Palestinians during predawn raids into Qalqiliya, Ramallah and Bethlehem districts, said the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS). . . .
___Two Palestinian minors were detained during a predawn raid into Beit Liqya town, southwest of Ramallah city.      MORE . . .

❸ PICTURES:  THE  OCCUPATION  FORCES  DEMOLISH  A  PLAYGROUND  AND  A  ROOM  AND  SWEEP  AN  AGRICULTURAL  LAND  IN  SILWAN
WADI HILWEH INFORMATION CENTER – SILWAN
The occupation municipality’s bulldozers demolished on Tuesday morning a private playground, a room and several walls in the neighborhood of Abbasyeh in Silwan.
___Wadi Hilweh Information Center was informed that joint crews of occupation municipality, Nature and Parks authority and Special Forces raided the neighborhood of Abbasyeh in Silwan and surrounded a land owned by Khaled Al-Zeer which was turned into a playground few months ago by placing toys for children such as a swing, a slide and other toys.      MORE . . .

. . . . . ❸―(ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  LEVEL  PALESTINIAN  PLAYGROUND  IN  ONGOING  SILWAN  DEMOLITIONS
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
March 29, 2016
The Israeli authorities on Tuesday levelled a privately-owned playground and uprooted several trees in ongoing demolitions in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, locals said.      MORE . . . 

❹ JORDAN  VALLEY  VILLAGE  AT  RISK  OF  ‘FORCIBLE  TRANSFER,’  WARNS  UN
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
March 28, 2016
A UN official warned Monday that the village of Khirbet Tana in the Jordan Valley was at risk of “forcible transfer” after a wave of Israeli demolitions left more than a third of its residents homeless.
___”It’s hard to see how demolitions like the ones in Khirbet Tana are about anything other than pushing vulnerable Palestinians out of certain parts of the West Bank,” Robert Piper, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement.      MORE . . .  
BACKGROUND . . .

❺ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  HOW  IMPUNITY  DEFINES  ISRAEL  AND  VICTIMIZES  PALESTINIANS
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
Ramzy Baroud
Mar 28 2016
Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was killed. In the style typical of Israeli aggression . . .
___He lies on his back, his arms stretched across the road, and his head moving about. A soldier confers with his superior officer, before moving to “confirm the kill” . . . .
___The soldier walks to Abed . . . and, in full view of onlookers, shoots him in the head.
___The incident once more highlights a culture of impunity that exists in the Israeli army which is not a new phenomenon . . . .     MORE . . .
RELATED . . .

“THE  PRISONER,”  BY  KHALIL  HAWI

My fear is gone now: are my senses mad?
Have the echoes returned–is my head whirling?
Who has shaken the prison night from my chest,
And that nightmarish wall?
For an age the blind stovepipe hole has been clogged with dust.
But what is this?
Now it is split by daylight,
And an echo invites me to escape!
The sun through the opening, the children’s laughter,
Remnants of life in a wasted field
That knew my shadow, my toil,
My hand singing to the grain–
All invite me to escape.
Is that delirious echo back?
Is it the whirling in my head?
How often has that echo beguiled me,
How often have my nails
Combed and scraped the prison wall,
And split on the deceiving stones?
Close the prison door to daylight;
It was long ago
I dreamt of amnesty and escape
Before the seconds rusted in my heart,
Before there was an echo to compute them, before the feverish waiting,
Before I was swallowed by the prison dark,
Before the dust gnawed at my eyelids,
Before my cramped limbs dropped
Into dust and decay, the bones scattered
By mice-feet, to rot over the years.
–How can they draw together again, grow supple, and live,
Or dream of a return?
What return would death make to the feeble creature?
What visions die in the smoke of the cafe,
And what escape is there from one hiding place to the next?
The jailor’s foul tongue
Stirs poison in my wounds.
The desire of the phoenix has died in the ashes,
And she and the world conceal their mutual hatred;
How will she draw together again, grow supple, and live?
What nonsense does that insolent jailer mutter?
He has brought me amnesty for punishment
Now that my bones have been rotting for years.
Shall I leave them here and go my way,
Faceless, with hollow limbs,
A wind-whipped ghost
Disgraced by the sunlight
And the children’s laughter,
Dodging between the walls?
Close the prison door to daylight:
It was long ago
That I dreamt of amnesty and escape.    (1957)

About Khalil Hawi
Hawi was Lebanese, not Palestinian. However, “His suicide (June 6, 1982) in protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was perhaps his greatest metaphor, completing the circle of his life and his poetry. It is as if his end was the direct translation of the symbols of rebirth that he so often used in his poetry. His symbols had failed him, just like his nation had done. He was forced to become a symbol himself “to die for himself and everyone,” in the words of the Syrian critic, Muhammad Jamal Barout.”
From: WHEN  THE  WORDS  BURN:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  ARABIC  POETRY:  1945-1987.  Trans. and ed. by John Mikhail Asfour. Dunvegan, Ontario: Cormorant Books, 1988.   (John Mikhail Asfour, Department of English, McGill University, Montreal)