❶ Unprecedented lawsuit seeks damages from widow, children of slain Palestinian attacker
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) 4 Palestinians detained for ‘incitement’ and ‘negligence’ after deadly attack

Background: “International Law and the Occupied Territories.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Israel Suspends Family Visits for Hamas-Affiliated Prisoners
❸ Bedouin village braces for a new round of demolitions
❹ POETRY by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
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❶ UNPRECEDENTED  LAWSUIT  SEEKS  DAMAGES  FROM  WIDOW,  CHILDREN  OF  SLAIN  PALESTINIAN  ATTACKER      
Ma’an News Agency  
July 2, 2017.  The Israeli public prosecutor for the Jerusalem district has filed “a precedent-setting” civil lawsuit against the widow and young children of Fadi al-Qunbar — who was shot dead by Israeli forces in January after he drove a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers, killing four — for some $2 million in financial damages.
___The children are all aged between one and eight years old.
___According to a report from Israeli news daily Haaretz, the case is a first in a number of civil lawsuits expected to be filed against the families of Palestinians who were killed while allegedly or actually carrying out attacks on Israelis, the Israeli prosecution confirmed.
[. . . .] Al-Qunbar’s relatives, who have denied having advanced knowledge of any plans to carry out an attack, and the wider community of Jabal al-Mukabbir, were subjected to a number of other collective punishment measures that critics called a “policy of reprisal” being waged in the neighborhood.   in the neighborhood.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) 4 PALESTINIANS  DETAINED  FOR  ‘INCITEMENT’  AND  ‘NEGLIGENCE’  AFTER  DEADLY  ATTACK
Ma’an News Agency
July 2, 2017.   Following an attack in occupied East Jerusalem last month in which an Israeli border police officer was killed and three Palestinian assailants were shot dead, Israeli police detained four Palestinians amid a massive security crackdown that has been denounced as “collective punishment.”
[. . . .] Immediately following the attack, Israeli forces besieged Deir Abu Mashaal, the hometown of the three slain Palestinians — Ankoush, Baraa Ibrahim Saleh Taha, and Usama Ahmad Dahdouh — and subjected it to multiple military raids, notably detaining Ankoush’s mother Zeinab on June 21. His father Hassan was detained during an overnight raid on June 29.
[. . . .] Immediately following the attack, Israeli authorities also took measurements of the homes of the alleged assailants in preparations for punitive demolitions, which the families had been informed would be carried out “soon.”
___According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a total of 22 people, the three mens’ family members, will be left homeless by the punitive demolitions in spite of not having been charged with any wrongdoing.   MORE . . .  

Weiss, Peter. “INTERNATIONAL  LAW  AND  THE  OCCUPIED  TERRITORIES.”  Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture, vol. 21, no. 3, Jan. 2016, pp. 96-101.
[. . . .] Today most people would associate international law with treaty law, which could be either bilateral or multilateral. However, long before treaty law came into common use, there was what the Romans called ins gentium, the law of nations, common to all humanity. This eventually evolved into natural law. . . Today’s international law incorporates both treaty law and non-treaty law. [. . . .] There is virtually unanimous international agreement that Israel’s presence in the West Bank constitutes an occupation within the meaning of Section III of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with the protection of civilian persons in times of war. The United States, the United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice have all upheld the agreement.
[. . . .] * Under Article 3, “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” are prohibited, as well as violence to life and person, in particular murder and torture”;
* Under Article 5, persons suspected of activity hostile to the occupying power shall be treated with humanity;
[. . . .] * Article 32 prohibits the commission of murder, torture and corporal punishment against protected persons, as well as “any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents”; and
* Under Article 33, “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or terrorism are prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”
___It requires no evidentiary brief to demonstrate that these and similar provisions are, by the current occupying power, more honored in the breach than in the observance.
[. . . .] All Palestinians living in the West Bank are protected persons under the law of occupation. They do not lose that status by killing settlers or committing other war crimes; they only become protected persons who remain entitled to due process and humanitarian treatment. Similarly, the settler who throws a fire bomb into a Palestinian house, killing a baby (and who, by the way, is never called a terrorist) does not lose his status as an Israeli citizen and retains the rights of an accused person.      SOURCE . .

❷ ISRAEL  SUSPENDS  FAMILY  VISITS  FOR  HAMAS-AFFILIATED  PRISONERS        Palestine Chronicle
July 1, 2017.   The Hamas movement said on Thursday that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) had decided to suspend family visitations for Hamas-affiliated prisoners from the besieged Gaza Strip.
___A committee of Hamas-affiliated prisoners detained by Israel said the decision, which it said was effective until further notice, was considered by the Palestinian movement to be a “declaration of war” against Hamas.   MORE . . .

❸ BEDOUIN  VILLAGE  BRACES  FOR  A  NEW  ROUND  OF  DEMOLITIONS 
+972 Blog
Yael Marom
July 3, 2017.   It has been nearly a year and a half since a police raid on the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran ended in the death of Yacoub Abu Al-Qi’an and police officer Erez Levi, yet Israeli Police have yet to publish the findings of its investigation into the incident. Meanwhile, the path is clear for the authorities to continue demolishing the village’s homes.     ___This time they are after makeshift structures donated to Yacoub Abu al-Qi’an’s family after he was killed by police in the early hours of January 18. Police initially claimed Abu al-Qi’an, a local math teacher, had deliberately plowed into a crowd of police officers during home demolitions in the village. Yet according to numerous eyewitnesses and independent investigations, officers opened fire on him while he was driving near ongoing clashes between villagers and police, causing him to accelerate, lose control of the vehicle, and fatally run over Levi.     ___Not a single government official thought to find a different solution for a family that was left that without a roof over its head, or for the children who were left without a father.   MORE . . .

“HOLY  LANDERS,”  BY  LAHAB  ASSEF  AL-JUNDI
Listen!
You are fighting over a land that can fit,
With wilderness to spare,
in the Panhandle of Texas.

You are building walls to segregate,
splitting wholes till little is left,
killing and dying for pieces of sky
in the same  window.

The olive trees are dying
of embarrassment.
They have enough fruits
and pits for all of you.
All they want is for you to stop
uprooting them.
Sending your children to die
in their names.

Listen!
Your land is no holier than my backyard.
None of you is any more chosen
than the homeless veteran panhandling
with a “God Bless” cardboard sign
at the light of Mecca    /and San Pedro.
Draw a borderline around the place.
Call it home for all the living,
all the dead,
all the tired exiles with its dust
gummed on their tongues.

There are no heroes left.

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born of Palestinian refugee parents and grew up in Damascus, Syria. He graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Not long after graduation, he discovered his passion for writing. He published his first poetry collection, A Long Way, in 1985. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, and many anthologies including Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, and Between Heaven and Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.  From BEFORE  THERE  IS  NOWHERE  TO  STAND:  PALESTINE  ISRAEL  POETS  RESPOND  TO  THE  STRUGGLE.  Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from Barnes & Noble.