❶ Tensions escalate in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes injure 4
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) Israeli airstrikes target Rafah area after mortars, shells fired across Gaza border
❷ Why one Gazan turned destroyed home into a zoo
❸ Army Kidnaps A Child In Jerusalem, Injures A Disabled Young Man In Hebron
❹ Israeli Police Prevents [Boy Scout] Islamic Anniversary Parade in Jerusalem
❺ Opinion/Analysis:  ELOR  AZARYA,  KING  OF  ISRAEL
❻ POETRY by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ TENSIONS  ESCALATE  IN  GAZA  AS  ISRAELI  AIRSTRIKES  INJURE  4
Ma’an News Agency
May 5, 2016
Four Palestinians, including three children, were injured when Israeli forces carried out several airstrikes in the besieged Gaza Strip early on Thursday morning, as tensions escalated in the Palestinian enclave in the past several days.
___The Israeli airstrikes on Thursday morning hit a metal workshop in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City, injuring 65-year-old Hassan Hassanien and three children from the family, who were all taken to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  AIRSTRIKES  TARGET  RAFAH  AREA  AFTER  MORTARS,  SHELLS  FIRED  ACROSS  GAZA  BORDER
Ma’an News Agency
May 4, 2016
Israeli forces launched several airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening, hours after Palestinian and Israeli shelling across the border of the besieged enclave.
___Witnesses told Ma’an that at least five airstrikes targeted an open area near the long-closed Rafah airport, causing material damage. No casualties were initially reported.    MORE . . . 

❷ WHY  ONE  GAZAN  TURNED  DESTROYED  HOME  INTO  A  ZOO
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
Asmaa al-Ghoul
May 2, 2016
More than one and a half years have passed since the 51-day war on Gaza, which started on July 8, 2014. Since then, about 18,000 homes were destroyed partially or completely and have yet to be rebuilt because of the suspension of the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip.
___Saeed al-Haddad is one of the people who has yet to receive compensation for his destroyed property. The four-story building is dilapidated, uninhabitable and doomed to collapse. However, Haddad wishes to turn it into a zoo, as he has been fond of raising animals since childhood.      MORE . . .

❸ ARMY  KIDNAPS  A  CHILD  IN  JERUSALEM,  INJURES  A  DISABLED  YOUNG  MAN   IN  HEBRON  
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
May 5, 2016
Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Wednesday at night, a Palestinian child from Jerusalem’s Old City. The soldiers also shot and injured a disabled Palestinian man near Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.
___Eyewitnesses in occupied Jerusalem said the soldiers kidnapped a child, only 14 years of age, in the Old city, after attacking and beating her.
___They added that the soldiers took the child to an interrogation center in the city, allegedly after “locating a knife in her purse.”      MORE . . .    

❹ ISRAELI  POLICE  PREVENTS  [Boy Scout]  ISLAMIC  ANNIVERSARY  PARADE  IN  JERUSALEM
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
May 5, 2016
Israeli police Thursday prevented a Palestinian scout group from parading to celebrate the Islamic festival of Isra and Miraj in Jerusalem, said WAFA correspondent.
___Police prevented Hilal al-Quds Scout Group from observing the day through a parade to mark the occasion, under the pretext that the festival coincides with the Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah).      MORE . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis:  ELOR  AZARYA,  KING  OF  ISRAEL
Mondoweiss
Dan Cohen
May 4, 2016
The episode since Israeli medic-soldier and French citizen Elor Azarya was filmed summarily executing Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sharif has been a sobering reminder of the Israeli right-wing’s total and long-standing dominance over the Zionist left  [. . . .]
___As the video went viral, the Israeli public rallied around Azarya . . . . a poll revealed that 82% of Israelis support the execution. Across the country, Israelis held public events including town halls and streets demonstrations, culminating with a rally for Azarya in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on April 19 . . . . around 80 Israeli men and boys of army age, some wearing Israeli flags as capes, rose from one knee and jumped while chanting: “Elor, HaMelech Yisrael! Chai chai, vekayam!” (Elor, the King of Israel lives!)      MORE . . .

“I  DEFY,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
Talk about exile―I defy
silence my argument with chains
and a foolish prison cell
I defy

Turn plague and sadness against me
I remained defying
cut my wrist
with my bloody chest I defy
cut my leg
I mount the wound and walk
and with my violence I defy
with my forehead I defy
and with my teeth
and the teeth of songs―I defy

and kill me―I defy
I kill death
and come to you a defying God

All that I own of my father’s and grandfather’
inheritance is to defy!

All that I understand from the
wind and the secrets of erased villages
and the songs of springs
on dying grass
a concealed sob
the roots of the tree
memorize it for me
a sob: To defy

All the eyes of children living within me
in bloody exile
All that I live of my absent country
in name and deed
a scream bruising me―to defy!

My anger drips oil and honey
my pain bears almonds, flouts and roses
so jail my piece of bread
I defy

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.   Available from Amazon.
About Samih Al-Qasim.