SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .
|  INTERNATIONAL  FEDERATION  OF  JOURNALISTS  DEMANDS  RESPONSE  AFTER  ISRAELI  ATTACK  ON  JOURNALISTS  PROTEST
In an open letter to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) demanded an urgent response to the unprovoked attack by Israeli forces . . . against a peaceful march organized by IFJ, at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem in the central occupied West Bank.    ___Several Palestinian and international journalists suffered severe tear-gas inhalation as Israeli forces suppressed the peaceful march . . .    ___The march was organized in support of the rights of Palestinian journalists and demanded freedom of movement for Palestinian journalists.    More . . .
|   PALESTINIAN  ‘GEEKS’  CODE  THEIR  WAY  TO  A  BETTER  FUTURE  IN  GAZA
By Fedaa al-Qedra
When Yasmin Helles was an English literature student at a Gaza college, she would spend most of her time online looking for information that could help her in academic life.   She always wondered who designed these websites . . . .   Six months ago, the 24-year-old saw an advertisement by Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG), a rapidly growing business and tech incubator, calling for young graduates to enroll in the first coding school in the beleaguered Palestinian territory . . .     [. . . .] Gazans are finding opportunities beyond the besieged strip. There is a rise in entrepreneurial start-ups and tech accelerators. . .  GSG’S  CODING  SCHOOL  was established in 2017 with funding from the likes of Google and London-based coding boot camp Founders & Coders. It aims to empower students to be full-stack developers . . .    More . . .
|  ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  ABDUCT  FIVE  PALESTINIANS  IN  BETHLEHEM  AND  JERUSALEM
Israeli soldiers abducted, on Sunday at dawn, five young Palestinian men from several areas in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has reported.    ___The PPS said the soldiers stormed and violently searched many homes, and interrogated several Palestinians, before abducting three.    More . . .
. . . . Related  IOF  Opens  Fire  at  Farmers  and  Shepherds  Near  Gaza  Border
. . . . Related  Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (08 – 13 November 2018)

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .
|  STOLEN  CHILDHOODS:  GAZA’S  INJURED  CHILDREN  STRUGGLE  TO  COMPLETE  EDUCATION
For 16-year-old Gaza teenager Abdallah Qassem, getting to school every day is a challenge. . . .  after losing both of his legs during the Great March Return protests, he is now confined to a wheelchair, making the journey much more complicated.    ___Qassem lives in Gaza’s Sheikh Redwan neighbourhood in an apartment situated on the second floor. . .   he has to be carried down the narrow stairwell by his two older brothers.    [. . . .] Around 10,000 Palestinians have been injured during protests, including more than 1,800 children. According to al-Minawi, 210 of these children are registered in Gaza’s public schools and 92 of them have stopped going to school completely or are missing many classes due to their injuries.   More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .
|   UNRWA  AND  QATAR  CELEBRATE  THE  RIGHT  TO  EDUCATION  FOR  PALESTINE  REFUGEES  STUDENTS 
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) organized a Back to School ceremony to celebrate support from the State of Qatar. The US$ 50 million contribution to the Agency’s education programme in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank was a vital component in the decision to open UNRWA schools without delay this August. The ceremony, held at the UNRWA Baqa’a Basic Boys’ School, affirms the importance of the right to education for Palestine refugees in the presence of the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) Managing Director H.E. Mr. Khalifa Bin Jassim Al-Kuwari.   Donate . . .

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“BRAINSTORMING  NAKBA,”  BY  JEHAN  BSEISO
At curious four I asked my mother why Superman did not speak
the same language I did
She told me that
Our cartoon hero is a little boy forever ten
His hands clasped behind his back, invisible handcuffs
She told me I had to learn another alphabet, another geography,
In the Big Yellow Atlas, for kids, full of pictures
We stenciled in your awkward shape into maps that didn’t even want you
We had to learn your name in their language
They told me I spoke funny.
So I rinsed my accent at school; madraseh instead of madrasa
I read about diaspora and exile and power structures
Without knowing what they meant
So you’re American? On paper
And Jordan? Is what I know
And Gaza? An old wives tale
We are bastard children of hyphens and supplements and sentences
that start with
Originally I’m from . . .
At home,
Baba counted in dead bodies, in ratios, and for breakfast we had
Nostalgia and symbols
We read Kanafani, Darwiche, and Said
When we found tongues
We learned to speak from the margins of pages,
From the periphery
Maybe this is Freud’s “Oceanic feeling”.
A veritable storehouse in the unconscious
To be from a place and not know the place
There are simple ways of being in the world, I’m told.
Still I choose Za3tar and Shatta and this awkward Fat7a.

From: I  REMEMBER  MY  NAME:  POETRY  BY  SAMAH  SABAWI,  RAMZY  BAROUD,  JEHAN  BSEISO.  Vacy Vlazna, editor. London: Novum Publishing, 2016. Available from publisher.