“. . . Instead of (human) beings in need of protection, the bodies of Palestinian children are constituted as part of the broader security threat to the form of life that matters. Accordingly . . . its violent treatment is not something that needs to be recognised as violence against life.” (Mikko Joronen).

❶ 18-month-old Palestinian dies after being injured with Israeli tear gas 2 months ago

• Background: “Politics of Precarious Childhood: Ill Treatment of Palestinian Children under the Israeli Military Order.” Geopolitics.

❷ High Court: Israel won’t demolish homes of Palestinian teen’s killers
❸ Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (22 June – 05 July 2017)
❹ POETRY by Rasim Al-Madhoun
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❶ 18-MONTH-OLD  PALESTINIAN  DIES  AFTER  BEING  INJURED  WITH  ISRAELI  TEAR  GAS  2  MONTHS  AGO
Ma’an News Agency      
July 8, 2017.   An 18-month old Palestinian infant died on Friday, some two months after suffering from tear gas inhalation when Israeli forces shot tear gas at Palestinian homes in the village of Abud in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah.
___According to Palestinian news agency WAFA, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 18-month-old Abdul Rahman Barghouti, was transferred to Hadassah Hospital in West Jerusalem after suffering from tear gas inhalation in May, owing to the severity of his condition.
[. . . .] Barghouti was injured after clashes broke out across the occupied West Bank on May 19 in support of some 1,300 Palestinian prisoners who were undergoing a mass hunger strike to demand better treatment and conditions in Israeli prisons.
___At the time, Israeli forces haphazardly shot tear gas at Palestinian homes, which caused many residents, including Barghouti, to suffer from tear gas inhalation.
[. . . .] According to WAFA, Israeli soldiers had prevented Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances from reaching Barghouti’s home to treat him . . . .   MORE . . .

Joronen, Mikko. “POLITICS  OF  PRECARIOUS  CHILDHOOD:  ILL  TREATMENT  OF  PALESTINIAN  CHILDREN  UNDER  THE  ISRAELI  MILITARY  ORDER.”   Geopolitics, vol. 21, no. 1, Jan-Mar2016, pp. 92-114.
“I am the law here, I am the sovereign.”
These words, used by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) commander whose soldiers shot dead 14-year-old Yusef a-Shawamreh in a small near-border West Bank village in March 2014, are perhaps imprudent but true to the prevailing situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Yusef, accompanied by two of his friends, had slipped through a breach in the West Bank wall to collect ‘akub’ (an edible thistle) from his family’s farmland, now divided by a fence and barbed wire, as he had done many times before . . .  the military was aware that at this time of the year the breach was regularly used by the villagers to pick akub. [Photo essay, picking akub.]   Yet, despite the fact that the area behind the fence is still on the Palestinian side of the green line, a military ambush was ordered in the area . . .  The use of live ammunition is, of course, prohibited by military regulations, unless the target is suspected of a dangerous crime – an exception to which the crossing of the West Bank wall can be easily included, if necessary. On 10 July 2014, the Military Advocate General (MAG) came to the verdict that no open-fire regulations were broken in the case of Yusef.
[. . . .] The imprisonment and incarceration of Palestinian children – things that cannot be done under Israeli civilian law – are therefore part of a government based on the creation of life that is not worth protecting, not worth sheltering and, in extreme cases, not worthy of living. Instead of (human) beings in need of protection, the bodies of Palestinian children are constituted as part of the broader security threat to the form of life that matters. Accordingly, the political constitution of vulnerable life is a production of life that does not matter – a life that is threatening and whose perishing does not count as a loss of life inasmuch as its violent treatment is not something that needs to be recognised as violence against life.     FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ HIGH  COURT:  ISRAEL  WON’T  DEMOLISH  HOMES  OF  PALESTINIAN  TEEN’S  KILLERS    
+972 Blog
July 5, 2017.   Israel’s High Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that the families of three Israelis who were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian who was burned alive in 2014, won’t have their homes demolished. Israel regularly demolishes the family homes of Palestinians who commit acts of violence against Israelis.
___Supreme Court Vice President Elyakim Rubinstein explained in the judgment that the court was rejecting the petition to demolish the homes of Yosef Haim Ben-David — along with two Israeli minors who took part in the kidnapping and murder — because too much time had passed between the murder and the date of the petition’s filing. Abu Khdeir’s family filed the petition in July 2016, two years after the murder.
___“There is no justice in the court system, which hands down decisions according to the directives of the Israeli government,” Muhammad’s father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, told Ynet. “This kind of decision encourages a continued attack on us under the guise of the state.”   MORE . . .

❸ WEEKLY  REPORT  ON  ISRAELI  HUMAN  RIGHTS  VIOLATIONS  IN  THE  OCCUPIED  PALESTINIAN  TERRITORY  (22 JUNE – 05 JULY 2017) 
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
July 6, 2017.    [. . . .] During the reporting period, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilian in Hebron, south of the Gaza Strip, and wounded 18 others, INCLUDING 8 CHILDREN, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
[. . . .] On 28 June 2017, a 15-year-old male sustained a metal bullet wound to the hand during an Israeli incursion into Beit Ummer village, north of Hebron.
[. . . .] On 29 June 2017, a 15-year-old male sustained a sponge-tipped bullet wound to the chest while a 19-year-old male sustained a similar wound to the right hand during an Israeli incursion into Bil’in village, west of Ramallah.
___On 30 June 2017, a 14-year-old male sustained a live bullet wound to the right side of the chest while another 15-year-old male sustained a live bullet wound to the left thigh during an Israeli incursion into Jenin.
___On the same day, a 14-year-old child sustained 2 live bullet wounds to the legs when Israeli forces moved into al-Mughair village, northeast of Ramallah.
___On 04 July 2017, 2 children sustained live bullet wounds when Israeli forces moved into al-Fare’ah refugee camp, south of Tubas.   MORE . . .

“GIYATH,” BY RASIM AL-MADHOUN
(Giyath is the poet’s first-born son.)

When you joined us, sure and smiling,
on our somber journey,
I forgave the world.
With the nest of childhood supporting me,
I inhaled its sweet fragrance and felt refreshed.
Maybe your newness
would grant us peace,
the blue calm of your eyes give us strength
to scuffle with life.

There you are, laughing,
while exile awaits you,
your grieving father, the map
of plundered Palestine, and the dreams
of all our friends who passed away.
All this inheritance is yours,
this pain nestling in my chest.

I know I disrupt the innocence of your blue eyes
but is they who have disrupted everything
while you were still a wish in your father’s heart.

My beautiful son,
the truth is they arranged the world
before you were born
and placed you at a crossing
to find the Future’s worthy road.
–Translated by Sharif S. Elmusa and Naomi Shihab Nye

Rasim Al-Madhoun was born 1947 in Askalan in southern Palestine, from which his family was driven to Gaza in 1948. After the 1967 war he emigrated to Cairo. He has lived in Amman, Beirut, and Damascus, where he lived as of 1992. His poetry is mainly about families in the diaspora. He has worked his entire life as a journalist and writer. His volumes of poetry include Sparrows of Roses, 1983. The linked  article is about a Palestinian writer named Rabai al-Madhoun, but the details of his life are so similar, it seems they are one in the same – or perhaps  brothers.
From ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN PALESTINIAN LITERATURE. Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.