❶ Death in numbers: A year of violence in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel

• Background from Journal Of Applied Philosophy

❷ September 2016 report: 436 Palestinians arrested, nearly 8000 since October 2015
❸ Consultations to begin in New York over draft resolution on settlements
❹ IOF forces Jerusalemite to demolish his house
❺ Poetry by Mourid Barghouti
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❶ DEATH  IN  NUMBERS:  A  YEAR  OF  VIOLENCE  IN  THE  OCCUPIED  PALESTINIAN  TERRITORY  AND  ISRAEL
Ma’an News Agency  
Oct. 4, 2016
In October 2015 began what has been in turn called a wave of unrest, a Palestinian upheaval, or even the “Jerusalem Intifada.” Whatever the name, the past year has seen an intensification of deadly violence in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel.    ___Over the course of the year, Ma’an has collected data regarding every person who has died as part of this latest chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.    ___In total, Ma’an has recorded the death of 274 individuals from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016. Of these dead, 235 were Palestinians (85.8 percent of deaths), 34 were Israeli (12.4 percent), and five (1.8 percent) were foreign nationals — two Americans, one Eritrean, one Sudanese, and one Jordanian.       More . . .  

• Gross, Michael L. “Assassination And Targeted Killing: Law Enforcement, Execution Or Self-Defence?.” Journal Of Applied Philosophy 23.3 (2006): 323-335. (Michael L. Gross, Department of International Relations, The University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa.)

[NOTE: Gross is writing about planned targeted assassinations, not attacks on soldiers, i.e. alleged knifings at checkpoints. However, substituting “immediate killings” for “targeted killings” the question remains the same: Are targeted killings (or immediate killings) acts of self-defense or extra-judicial execution?]

___Paradoxically, targeting terrorists, that is, those who egregiously violate humanitarian law and wantonly murder civilians, complicates the conceptual framework that justifies killing during war and distinguishes it from murder. As observers evaluate the merits of targeted killing and assassination, they find it difficult to categorize the actors and their actions clearly. Are targets of assassination ordinary soldiers, war criminals or illegal combatants? Do perpetrators of assassination seek retribution, deterrence, interdiction or pre-emption? Are targeted killings acts of self-defense or extra-judicial execution?
[. . . .]
The criminal behaviour of terrorists may then lead officials to invoke the law enforcement paradigm. This demands that states treat terrorists just as they would any heinous criminal, whether an ordinary lawbreaker or war criminal. Law enforcement entails arrest, trial and sentencing, and only permits law enforcement officers to use lethal force when either their lives or the lives of bystanders are in immediate danger. . . . Without due process, named killings are nothing but extrajudicial execution and murder. . . .
___. . . soldiers may kill during armed conflict when it is necessary, proportionate and consistent with the demands of utility. These are the common principles of just war and the conventional laws of armed conflict. Necessity allows nations to exercise armed force only when no other means are feasible to stave off armed aggression. Utility demands that belligerents do not cause more harm than the good they hope to achieve while proportionality limits excessive harm so that even important or necessary goals may not be secured at any cost. . . . Unless nations face a ‘supreme emergency’ that is, an otherwise unavoidable genocidal threat, there are no grounds for violating the laws of armed conflict.

❷ SEPTEMBER  2016  REPORT:  436  PALESTINIANS  ARRESTED,  NEARLY  8000  SINCE  OCTOBER  2015
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network  
Oct. 3, 2016
Israeli occupation forces arrested 436 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2016, including 73 children and 11 women (including 3 minor girls.)
___151 of those arrests took place in the Jerusalem Governorate, 81 in Al-Khalil, 40 in Bethlehem, 40 in Nablus, 35 in Jenin, 32 in Ramallah and El-Bireh, 23 in Tulkarem, eight in Qalqilya, six in Tubas, six in Salfit, five from Jericho and nine from the Gaza Strip.      ___There are approximately 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including 59 women, 12 of them minor girls. There are a total of approximately 350 children in Megiddo and Ofer prisons. There are 700 Palestinians held in administrative detention without charge or trial. 122 administrative detention orders were issued in September, including 44 new orders.       More . . .    

❸ CONSULTATIONS  TO  BEGIN  IN  NEW YORK  OVER  DRAFT  RESOLUTION  ON  SETTLEMENTS   
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA  
Oct. 4, 2016
Foreign Minister Riyad Malki Tuesday stated that the Arab Ministerial Quartet has decided to start consultations in New York to push for a United Nations Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.
___Speaking to WAFA before leaving Cairo where he attended the Arab meeting, Malki said that consultations will start in New York on submitting a draft resolution to the UN Security Council condemning and calling for a halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.          More . . .

❹ IOF  FORCES  JERUSALEMITE  TO  DEMOLISH  HIS  HOUSE
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency     
Oct. 4, 2016
Israeli occupation authorities forced on Monday the Jerusalemite Samer Dkaik to demolish part of his house in Assadeiah neighborhood in Old Jerusalem under the pretext of unlicensed building.
___Dkaik said that Israeli authorities forced him to demolish a 30-m2 room in his house that he built a year ago.
___He explained that he along with his wife and his daughter and sons live in just one room, so that he built the other room for his sons, “No words can express the pain when you are forced to demolish your own house,” he said.     More . . .  

“HOW ARE YOU?” BY MOURID BARGHOUTI
Waiting for the school bus,
watching his breath turn into mist near his nose
in the icy morning,
the schoolboy’s fingers are frozen,
too stiff to make a fist.

On the pillow of regret,
the defeated soldier
lazily tries to get up,
raising his broken toothbrush
to his teeth.

Early or late,
The stranger awakens in his exile, his homeland.
Their clothes, their car number pates, their trees,
their quarrels, their love, their land, their sea
belong to them.
His memories are like rats gathering on his doormat,
new and warm
in front of his closed door.

On a lonely pillow,
the mother throws a quick glance
at the bed of her elder son,
made for the final time
and empty, forever.

A voice from the neighbouring window is heard:
“Hello, good morning, how are you?”
“Hello, good morning, we’re fine,
we’re fine!”

From: Barghouti, Mourid. Midnight and other Poems. Trans. By Radwa Ashour. Todmorden, Lancashire, UK: Arc Books, 2008. Available from B&N.
Mourid Barghouti (born July 8, 1944, in Deir Ghassana, near Ramallah, on the West Bank)