SELECTED  NEWS  OF  THE  DAY

ISRAELI  SETTLERS  DAMAGE  40  PALESTINIAN  VEHICLES  IN  NABLUS
Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian house, punctured and damaged vehicles in the northern West Bank district of Nablus late Thursday.  ___The attacks came after an Israeli settlers was killed by a Palestinian driver in a car accident, initially thought to be a vehicular attack, near Nablus, late Thursday night.   ___The Palestinian driver, 60, turned himself in to the Palestinian liaison, shortly after the accident, saying that he had fled the site of the accident out of fear.  MORE.
ISRAEL  EXTENDS  DETENTION  OF  PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  ON  DAY  OF  RELEASE
The Israeli authorities renewed, on Friday morning, the administrative detention of Palestinian prisoner Fidaa Muhammad Ikhlayyil, 21, from Beit Ummar in the southern West Bank district of Hebron. . .  Ikhlayyil, a university student, was detained by Israeli forces six months ago and charged with incitement against Israel via her social media pages.   MORE.
HAMAS  RESPONDS  TO  ISRAELI  THREATS  AGAINST  ITS  LEADERS
Member of Hamas Political Bureau Husam Badran responded on Sunday to Israeli threats of assassinating the Movement’s leaders. ___In a press release on Sunday, Badran said that the Israeli threats against Hamas leaders “reflect the state of confusion and hysteria the Israeli Occupation is going through.”  MORE.
REPORTS  REVEAL  KUSHNER  PLAN  TO  DISMANTLE  UNRWA
The Palestinian leadership have slammed a reported plan by the US President’s special adviser Jared Kushner to dismantle the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, saying it’s a plot to take a key issue off any future negotiations. MORE.

COMMENTARY  AND  OPINION

WHY  A  CULTURAL  CENTRE?
Samia Khoury
A few days ago Israel bombarded the Mishal  cultural centre in Gaza destroying it completely.  Why?  This centre has been the gift of Said Meshal to the youth of Gaza to help them cope with all the pressure of living under  siege for the last twelve years.  It is neither a Hamas nor a Fateh Centre. . . . Is it not enough that those young people as well as all the people of Gaza are deprived of a normal life, that it was too much for Israel to see them enjoying some fun with music art, and drama.  MORE.

ARBITRARY  DEMANDS  ON  FOREIGN  NATIONAL  ACADEMICS  WORKING  IN  PALESTINIAN  UNIVERSITIES
(Letter from Committee on Academic Freedom, Middle East Studies Association)
Dear Prime Minister and Ministers,
We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our dismay regarding the severe and unreasonable limitations imposed on foreign nationals who are faculty members at Birzeit University (BZU) and other Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza. These faculty, some of whom have been teaching for years in Palestinian universities, now have to deal with a wide range of arbitrary demands and conditions in order to obtain re-entry visas that permit their employment in Palestinian universities. Moreover, for the past two years, the Israeli authorities have increasingly denied visas – both new and re-entry – to such academics, to a degree that severely imperils the quality of Palestinian education and the right to education of Palestinian students.  MORE.

FOR  PALESTINIANS  IN  GAZA,  PETER  BEINART’S  DETENTION  IS  A  LUXURY.  HERE  ARE  OUR  STORIES.
Muhammad Shehada
This week, noted journalist, CNN contributor and Forward columnist Peter Beinart underwent a shocking ordeal. He was detained and interrogated at Ben Gurion Airport when trying to enter Israel, despite being Jewish and an ardent Zionist. The outrage was so swift that Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu himself called the episode a mistake in a quasi-apology. . . . for Gaza’s two million locked up inhabitants, it’s far worse. Israel closes Gaza’s sea, air and field spaces with its military, leaving the population with one Israeli-controlled border to leave the besieged enclave, the Erez Border Crossing. There is also the Egyptian border, the Rafah crossing. . . .  The truth is, I’d rather to be detained and interrogated at Ben Gurion for weeks on end than be imprisoned in Gaza. ___I’m not alone. Here are a few stories of Palestinians from Gaza who feel similarly.   MORE.

WEEKLY  REPORT  ON  ISRAELI  HUMAN  RIGHTS  VIOLATIONS  IN  THE  OCCUPIED  PALESTINIAN  TERRITORY  (09–15–2018)
Israeli forces continued to use force against Palestinian peaceful protestors in the Gaza Strip.
3 Palestinian civilians, including a volunteer paramedic, were killed while a civilian succumbed to his pervious wounds.
157 Palestinian civilians, including 27 children, 2 women, 2 journalists, and 2 paramedics, were wounded; 11 of them sustained serious wounds.
Israeli forces conducted 73 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 4 similar incursions were conducted in Jerusalem. . . .
Israeli authorities continued to create a Jewish majority in occupied East Jerusalem. MORE.