❶ Palestinian gunman shot dead after 2 killed, several injured in Jerusalem attack
❷ 52 Palestinians injured during clashes with Israeli forces near al-Quds University

• Background: “Life In Abu Dis Continues Quietly.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

❸ Israel knocks down civilian structures in Jordan Valley
❹ Letters to UN officials on critical situation of Palestinian territories
. . . ❹ ― (a) Hamas calls ICC visit ‘pointless’ for skipping Gaza
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❶ PALESTINIAN  GUNMAN  SHOT  DEAD  AFTER  2  KILLED,  SEVERAL  INJURED  IN  JERUSALEM  ATTACK
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 9, 2016
At least six people were shot and injured in a drive-by shooting near the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah Sunday morning. The gunman was shot and killed by Israeli police at the scene, while two of the injured later succumbed to their wounds.
___The shooting attack comes a day after the gunman told Ma’an that he intended to turn himself in to serve a prison sentence, after he was charged with assaulting an Israeli police officer in 2013.
___Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said in an initial statement that shots were fired near the Israeli police headquarters in Jerusalem, and that Israeli police responded to the scene and shot the “terrorist” after a brief pursuit.     More . . .    
❷  52  PALESTINIANS  INJURED  DURING  CLASHES  WITH  ISRAELI  FORCES  NEAR  AL-QUDS  UNIVERSITY
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 8, 2016
Israeli forces injured more than 50 Palestinians during clashes Sunday evening outside al-Quds University in the village of Abu Dis in the occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem.
___The ambulance service of the Palestinian Red Crescent told Ma’an that their medics treated 52 people who were either hit by rubber-coated steel bullets or suffered from severe tear gas inhalation.
___One victim was evacuated to the hospital after sustaining a fracture in the hand from a rubber-coated bullet.
___Al-Quds University Spokesperson Muhammad Abu al-Zeit told Ma’an that although the clashes took place outside the campus, some tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets fired by Israeli forces landed inside the university grounds.   More . . .  

• Najjar, Rima. “Life In Abu Dis Continues Quietly.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 37.2 (2014): 606-663.   Full article . . . 

On several occasions this past year, Israeli armored vehicles were deployed to supervise operations close to the apartheid/annexation wall across the street from the main gate of Al-Quds  University—operations  such  as  demolishing  a  home,  or  constructing an even higher barrier between Abu Dis and the township land bordering  on  East  Jerusalem  that  the  wall  annexes,  or  checking  AQU  student IDs to find and detain students on their lists. Whenever this happens, word spreads quickly among the youth of the town and whoever happens to be within a stone’s throw from the Israeli armored vehicles throws stones at them;  others  collect  and  break  up  larger  chunks  for  throwing,  piling  them  up in strategic places. A few AQU students join in, to the chagrin of campus security, and that unleashes a barrage of tear gas, sound bombs, and bullets from the Israeli side, whose soldiers are in full protective regalia. They shoot into the campus, on one occasion deliberately aiming at and shattering the glass  doors  of  a  campus  building,  on  another,  walking  right  into  campus,  guns  pointed  ahead  of  them,  turning  this  way  and  that,  in  a  show  of  blustering  intimidation.
___Whenever  I  post  images  from  these  events,  I  am  invariably  asked  by  some  readers  to  explain  the  reason  for  the  activities of the Israeli forces on the scene. This gives me an opportunity to point out, as I have done when I posted a picture album of such an incident taking place, photographed from the window of a class I was in the middle of teaching, that it is the soldiers or Israeli police that provoke the children’s reactions. I called the album, “Class, Interrupted.”
___Vacy Vlazna (Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters in Sydney, Australia) expresses this latter viewpoint in a comment she sent me that is worth quoting at length here, as it captures my intention in posting these images [https://www.facebook.com/rima.najjar.merriman]:
___”Abu Dis, strangled by the illegal and obscene Apartheid/Annexation
Wall, is a microcosm of all Palestinian villages where beneath the seeming
normality of work, school, shopping, play, is trauma and stress which can
erupt in the anxious randomness of Israeli military excursions recorded by
Rima’s little camera and the posters of detainees seized at night from their
family bed or the martyrs extrajudicially murdered, displayed in the streets
and at the university. Every single person in Abu Dis is soul-wounded by
Israel’s brutal occupation. Even the land. The beautiful vista of the Jordan
Valley beyond the village is scarred by illegal Israeli colonies and the
Wall that mock centuries of Palestinian symbiosis with their land.”

❸ ISRAEL  KNOCKS  DOWN  CIVILIAN  STRUCTURES  IN  JORDAN  VALLEY    
The Palestinian Information Center 
Oct. 9, 2016
The Israeli occupation army on early Sunday morning knocked down Palestinian civilian structures in the occupied northern Jordan Valley.
___Activist Mootaz Besharat, in charge of the settlement file in the Jordan Valley, said a flock of ten Israeli military patrols and four army jeeps rolled into al-Ras al-Ahmar area and imposed a tight security cordon before they carried out large-scale demolitions.      ___A chain of residential barracks and others for raising livestock, along with a water line used by over eight Palestinian families, were destroyed in the process.       More . . .  

❹ LETTERS  TO  UN  OFFICIALS  ON  CRITICAL  SITUATION  OF  PALESTINIAN  TERRITORIES
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency    
Oct. 9, 2016
The Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour has sent three identical letters to both the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council (Russian Federation) and also to President of the UN General Assembly on the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, as the ongoing practices of Israel against the Palestinian people.
___The letters included Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, especially the confiscation of Palestinian land and the settlement campaign in all parts of the occupied State of Palestine, including Jerusalem, which increases the fragility of the critical situation and undermine the possibility of achieving the two-state solution.       More . . .  
. . . ❹ ― (a)  HAMAS  CALLS  ICC  VISIT  ‘POINTLESS’  FOR  SKIPPING  GAZA    
The New Arab     
Oct. 9, 2016
Hamas have called a visit by the International Criminal Court “pointless” after the delegation skipped besieged Gaza.
___The ICC group toured Israel and the West Bank on Saturday and Sunday – the first visit to the occupied Palestinian territory since the 2014 Gaza War.
___At the request of the Palestinians, the Office of the Prosecutor opened an initial probe into alleged war crimes by both sides during the 51-day conflict.
___”It is regrettable that the ICC delegation yielded to the demands of the Israeli occupation to exclude the Gaza Strip from the delegation’s schedule, despite the fact that the Gaza Strip was the main site of Israeli crimes in 2014,” a statement released on the movement’s website said.       More . . .