Category: Defense for Children International

“. . . and wish for you another day another sun . . .” (Ramzy Baroud)

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IMG_1399-1
Sarah Algherbawi with her husband and son, Khalil. (Photo: Mondoweiss, Dec. 14, 2018, courtesy of the family)

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .     
|  ISRAELI  ARMY  SHATTERS  THE  ILLUSION  OF  NORMALCY  IN  RAMALLAH
Living in Ramallah is thought of as trendy these days, and to a certain extent, represents a relatively luxurious life. Restaurants and cafes are packed, there are clubs and parties on weekends, there are sports and cultural activities, art galleries, and concerts.   ___Yet that assumption, that life is good as long as you are inside Ramallah, is not always reflective of reality. Israeli forces raid the city of regularly, entering a neighborhood in the dead of night, taking over an entire home or building, and leaving at dawn with whomever they came to capture.    ___This week, with Christmas approaching, Israel didn’t just invade one neighborhood, it put the entire city under military closure . . . .     More . . .
|  GAZA  TEACHER  AMONG  50  FINALISTS  FOR  ‘WORLD’S  BEST  TEACHER’  PRIZE
The Palestinian Ministry of Education announced on Friday that a teacher from Gaza has been nominated as one of 50 finalists for the “world’s best teacher prize”.    ___Maths teacher Rana Ziadeh is to compete for the prize as part of a competition organized by global education charity The Varkey Foundation, Safa news agency reported.    More . . .    
~~ TWO  SCHOOLS  EVACUATED  AS  SETTLER  OPENS  GUNFIRE  OUTSIDE
An Israeli settler opened gunfire on Sunday outside two schools on the entrance to the village of al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, to the south of Nablus in the West Bank, as other settlers rampaged through the street under the protection of Israeli forces, local sources said.   ___The shooting terrified the students and teachers of the two schools, and were forced to leave the schools to a safe haven.    More . . .
~~ STUDENTS  SUFFOCATE  FROM  TEARGAS  FIRED  BY  ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  IN  HEBRON
Dozens of students suffocated on Sunday from teargas inhalation after Israeli soldiers fired teargas canisters at them in a school in Hebron City, southern West Bank, a local source told WAFA.     More . . .
|   ISRAEL  DELIVERS  DEMOLITION  NOTICE  TO  FAMILY  OF  PALESTINIAN  PRISONER
Israeli forces delivered a demolition notice to the family of 16-year-old Khalil Jabbarin, in Yatta City in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, on Sunday.    ___Jabbarin, was shot, injured and imprisoned by Israeli forces, in September, after he had carried out a stabbing attack reportedly killing an Israeli settler.    ___The Israeli commander of the Israeli military central command approved an order for the demolition of the Jabbarin family’s apartment . . .  [. . . .] Israel demolishes family homes of Palestinians, who were involved in attacking Israelis as part of its collective punishment policy against the Palestinian people.     More . . .
~~ SETTLERS  START  EXPANSION  OF  SETTLEMENT  NEAR  HEBRON
Israeli Jewish settlers on Sunday proceeded to expand the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yair, to the south of Hebron city in the southern West Bank.    ___Rateb Jabour, coordinator of the National and Popular Committee in Hebron, told WAFA that Israeli settlers started razing lands and installing caravans in the settlement in order to expand it.    More . . .

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .
|  ISRAEL’S  ASSASSINATION  OF  PALESTINIAN  CHILDHOOD
Israeli soldiers continue to practice terrorism and murder against Palestinians; the latest of which was with the shooting of four-year-old child Ahmed Yassen Abu Abed, when an Israeli sniper fired an internationally forbidden bullet at his head.    ___The child Ahmed Yasser Abu Abed died of wounds sustained a week ago east of Khan Younis.    [. . . .] Defense for Children International, Palestine said the Israeli occupation forces killed 52 children in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, since the beginning of this year, 46 of them were in the Gaza Strip.    More . . .
~~ HOW  IT  FEELS  TO  HAVE  A  CHILD  IN  AN  UNINHABITABLE  PLACE
Sarah Algherbawi
I just had my first baby, a boy named Khalil, last month. From the first moment I held my child in my arms, I was flushed with emotions. I was extremely happy and blessed, but also worried and confused.    [. . . .] When I thought of the coming year, I could not help but think of the UN report that warns my home in the Gaza Strip will be “uninhabitable” by 2020.    [. . . .] It’s not only the fear of war that dominates every parent in Gaza. We also lack stability. When I lost my job on July because of the punitive measures the Trump administration took against Palestinians I became like one-third of Gaza: unemployed.    More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .
|  DEFENCE  FOR  CHILDREN  INTERNATIONAL  (DCI)  is a worldwide movement for children’s rights with more than 37 national sections and associated members across the globe. DCI-PALESTINE WAS CREATED IN PALESTINE in order to promote and defend children’s rights. Therefore, several actions are undertaken in the following priority issues . . .     Donate . . .    ..

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“LULLABY,”  BY  RAMZY  BAROUD
. . . For (Miriam), a refugee child from Palestine

I’ll etch your name
on a secret star
we’ll both go there
on frightful nights

when Mother Earth
runs out of room
for you and me

I’ll hold you tight
and sing you songs
of a distant land
beyond the stars

and watch you grow
between my heart
and the highest high

I’ll draw your face
on a single seed
and hold your palm
to face the sun

when you’re awake
and call out my name
don’t moan or cry

I’ll return
to raise your hand
at a shooting star
and with for you

another day
another sun
another world

where Palestine
is a mountain top
of soil and air
and a purple sky

From: I  REMEMBER  MY  NAME:  Poetry  by  Samah  Sabawi,  Ramzy  Baroud,  Jehan  Bseiso. Vacy Vlanzna, ed. London: Novum Publishing, 2016. Available from Barnes and Noble.

“. . . I’m old enough, almost four, I’ve seen enough . . .” (Hanan Ashrawi)

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❶ IOF arrests seven Jerusalemite minors
CONTEXT: Military Court Watch (monitoring the treatment of children in detention)
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli settler attacks Palestinian child in Hebron
CONTEXT: Space to play: West Bank refugee camps are facing a crisis of safety and square feet
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) A life worth living?

  • Background: “The Right to Home: Domicide as a Violation of Child and Family Rights in the Context of Political Violence.” Children & Society

❷ Palestinian demolishes own home in Jerusalem to avoid Israeli fines
❸ POETRY by Hanan Ashrawi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ IOF  ARRESTS  SEVEN  JERUSALEMITE  MINORS
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Nov. 12, 2017 ― Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested on Sunday morning, five Jerusalemite minors after storming their houses in the town of Silwan, south of Al Aqsa Mosque.
___The IOF arrested from Silwan. Abdulrahman Shweky, 14, Qosay Zaiton 13, Imran Mansour ,15, Mehdi Mansour, 12, and Khaled Mayala, 20, and were transferred to investigate at Maskobeya police station in the occupied Jerusalem, confirmed the lawyer Mohammed Mahmoud.
___Wadi Hilweh Information Center said that the intelligence and occupation forces stormed Silwan neighborhoods and arrested five children after storming their houses.   MORE . . .
CONTEXT:    MILITARY  COURT  WATCH  (MONITORING  THE  TREATMENT  OF  CHILDREN  IN  DETENTION).   Briefing Note, October 2017 ― This Briefing Note reviews developments in the Israeli military detention system for children and covers the period up to October 2017.
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  SETTLER  ATTACKS  PALESTINIAN  CHILD  IN  HEBRON 
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency 
Nov. 12, 2017 ― Ahmed Hadeeb, 15, was injured by bruises on Saturday after an Israeli settler beat and injured him in the center of Hebron.
__According to local sources, the settler hit Habeed with the butt of his rifle; he was injured and then transferred to the hospital.   MORE . . .
CONTEXT:  SPACE  TO  PLAY:  WEST  BANK  REFUGEE  CAMPS  ARE  FACING  A  CRISIS  OF  SAFETY  AND  SQUARE  FEET 
Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)       
Oct. 5, 2017   ― [. . . .] Overcrowding and fifty years of Israeli military occupation, as well as the now-frequent Palestinian security forces’ raids, have negatively impacted the available spaces for play. When schools let out for the summer, children spend their time between camp spaces that are either too cramped or too dangerous for play [. . . .]
. . . . . ― (ᴃ) A  LIFE  WORTH  LIVING?
The Electronic Intifada      
Hamza Abu Eltarabesh
Nov. 9, 2017 ― Young people in Gaza are finding few prospects for a better life.
___On Tuesday, 29 August, Mohannad Younis swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and ended his life.
___He was only 22 and seemed to have much going for him. A budding author, he had recently completed a series of short stories and just put the finishing touches on a stage play – Escape.   MORE . . .

Akesson, Bree, et al.
“THE  RIGHT  TO  HOME:  DOMICIDE  AS  A  VIOLATION  OF  CHILD  AND  FAMILY  RIGHTS  IN  THE  CONTEXT  OF  POLITICAL  VIOLENCE.”
Children & Society, vol. 30, no. 5, Sept. 2016, pp. 369-383.
[. . . .] The term domicide was coined by Porteous and Smith to describe the ‘deliberate destruction of home against the will of the home dweller’.
[. . . .] Home is a symbolic place that often embodies togetherness, individual and family growth, accomplishments, memories, and deeply personal and familial connections with land and territory. Scholars have pointed out how places of origin, such as the home, are closely connected to cultural practices, symbolic meanings, memories and rituals that shape individual identity.
[. . . .] One study examining the effects of home demolitions on Palestinian children . . .   compared to children of similar demographics living in the same location, found that children who had their homes intentionally destroyed fared significantly worse on a range of mental health indicators including withdrawal, somatic complaints, depression, anxiety, social difficulties, higher rates of delusional, obsessive compulsive and psychotic thoughts, attention difficulties, delinquency, and violent behaviour. Not surprisingly, the study found that children’s mental health was closely tied to their caregivers’ mental and physical health. Similarly, [a] case study of home demolitions for children in Palestine found that children who were forced from their homes reported feeling anxious, sad and angry after experiencing repeated displacement. Losing their homes and becoming refugees within their own neighbourhoods was reported as the most painful incident that had happened to them and ultimately an experience of ‘living in the hyphen’.   FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ PALESTINIAN  DEMOLISHES  OWN  HOME  IN  JERUSALEM  TO  AVOID  ISRAELI  FINES    
Ma’an News Agency  
Nov. 12, 2017 ― A Palestinian from the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan was forced to destroy his own home on Saturday in order to avoid incurring a demolition fee from Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality, which was set to carry out the demolition.
___According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Abd al-Ghani Dweik, a resident of the al-Bustan area of Silwan, said that the Israeli municipality issued a demolition order against his house, along with a demolition fee of 80,000 shekels ($22,741).
___Four people were residing in the home, which was built two years ago.
___A spokesman of a Silwan-based committee formed to fight demolitions, Fakhri Abu Diab, previously told Ma’an that all 100 residential structures in the al-Bustan area are slated for demolition, and that the 1,570 residents of the area have exhausted all legal options.   MORE . . .

“FROM  THE  DIARY  OF  AN  ALMOST-FOUR-YEAR-OLD,”  BY  HANAN  ASHRAWI
Tomorrow, the bandages
will come off. I wonder
will I see half an orange,
half an apple, half my
mother’s face
with my one remaining eye?
I did not see the bullet
but felt its pain
exploding in my head.
His image did not
vanish, the soldier
with a big gun, unsteady
hands, and a look in
his eyes
I could not understand.

If I can see him so clearly
with my eyes closed,
it could be that inside our heads
we each have one spare set
of eyes
to make up for the ones we lose.

Next month, on my birthday,
I’ll have a brand new glass eye,
maybe things will look round
and fat in the middle —
I’ve gazed through all my marbles,
they made the world look strange.

I hear a nine-month-old
has also lost an eye,
I wonder if my soldier
shot her too—a soldier
looking for little girls who
look him in the eye—
I’m old enough, almost four,
I’ve seen enough of life,
but she’s just a baby
who didn’t know any better.

Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
From ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE.  Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.

 

“. . . until they became children whose innocence was violated . . .” (Dareen Tatour)

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Mourners at the funeral of Murad Abu Ghazi, 12, al-Aroub Refugee camp, shot by Israeli soldier, March 18, 2017. (Photo: Haaretz)

❶ Teenage girl shot by Israeli forces in Meto Dovan dies

  • Background: Excessive Use of Force by the Israeli Army: A Case Study

❷ Israel releases injured 17-year-old Palestinian girl
❸ Briefing Note, May 2017 – Military Court Watch: monitoring the treatment of children in detention
❹ Why Israel can’t defeat a Palestinian poet
❺ POETRY by Dareen Tatour

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ TEENAGE  GIRL  SHOT  BY  ISRAELI  FORCES  IN  METO  DOVAN  DIES
Al Jazeera English 
June 2, 2017
A Palestinian teenage girl who was shot by Israeli forces on Thursday after an alleged stabbing attack outside a Jewish-only settlement in the occupied West Bank has died, a hospital official said on Friday.
___A spokesperson for the Hadera-based Hillel Yaffe medical centre, where 15-year-old Nouf Iqab Abd el-Jabber Enfeat was being treated, told Al Jazeera that the teen “was critically injured when she came in and she died from her wounds this morning”.     ___The incident took place at the entrance of the Meto Dovan settlement in the northern occupied West Bank. A soldier was “lightly injured”. . . .
[. . . . ] at least nine Palestinian children, including Enfeat, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in 2017.      MORE . . . 

BACKGROUND:   EXCESSIVE  USE  OF  FORCE  BY  THE  ISRAELI  ARMY:  A  CASE  STUDY
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Right
Amaya al-Orzza and Lisa Aue
April, 2017
Introduction: In the last months of 2015, protests over ongoing violations of Palestinians’ fundamental rights were met with a sharp increase in the illegal use of force and collective punishment by Israel throughout Mandate Palestine. Between 1 October and 31 December, 138 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and thousands were injured. By the end of March 2016, the number of Palestinians killed was 200, and by 1 October 2016 it was 232. . . . another kind of suppression of Palestinian resistance began to take place throughout the West Bank in the form of increased use of live ammunition during army raids and clashes.
___The number of live ammunition injuries in the period of January-September 2016 was over 60 percent higher than the same period in 2015.
[. . . .]   This case study aims to analyze the recent increase in the use of live ammunition and its correlation to a wider policy of suppression of resistance . . . .    REPORT . . .

❷ ISRAEL  RELEASES  INJURED  17-YEAR-OLD  PALESTINIAN  GIRL       
Ma’an News Agency  
June 2, 2017
Israeli authorities released on Thursday injured Palestinian teen Taqwa Bassam Hammad, 17, who was shot and detained by Israeli forces last month near the village of Silwad, in eastern Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.     [. . . .]
___The teenage girl was detained on May 23 after she was shot by Israeli forces near Silwad. The circumstances of the shooting were unclear, though unconfirmed reports said that the girl was shot because she was throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.
___Locals at the time said the girl was shot in the lower extremities and that Israeli troops prevented a Palestinian ambulance from accessing the Hammad to treat her.
[. . . .]  ___Meanwhile, according to Ma’an documentation, 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis since the beginning of 2017, nine of whom were minors.    MORE . . . .   BACKGROUND . . . .  

original-10141-1461603810-9
Dima al-Wawi, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, was released from an Israeli prison on March 25, 2016, after spending two months behind bars (Photo: Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP)

❸ BRIEFING  NOTE – MAY  2017
Military Court Watch: monitoring the treatment of children in detention   
In March 2013, UNICEF published a report – Children in Israeli Military Detention – which found that: “The ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the [Israeli] military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing”. The report concluded by making 38 recommendations.       ___In response to these findings the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it would “study the conclusions and work to implement them through on-going cooperation with UNICEF”. The purpose of this note is to review progress made in implementing the UNICEF recommendations and to consider recent developments in the military detention system.         MORE . . .
❹ WHY  ISRAEL  CAN’T  DEFEAT  A  PALESTINIAN  POET 
The Electronic Intifada 
Budour Youssef Hassan
May 29, 2017   Dareen Tatour felt sad as she watched this year’s “march of return” on television.
___The poet had wanted to attend the event in memory of Palestinian villages that Israel has tried to erase from history. Being under house arrest prevented her from doing so.
___“I have been taking part in the march of return for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I am gutted that I could not attend for the past two years.”     MORE . . . .

“A  POET  BEHIND  BARS,”  BY  DAREEN  TATOUR
Translated by Tariq al Haydar

In prison, I met people
too numerous to count:
Killer and criminal,
thief and liar,
the honest and those who disbelieve,
the lost and confused,
the wretched and the hungry.
Then, the sick of my homeland,
born out of pain,
refused to go along with injustice
until they became children whose innocence was violated.
The world’s compulsion left them stunned.
They grew older.
No, their sadness grew,
strengthening with repression,
like roses in salted soil.
They embraced love without fear,
and were condemned for declaring,
“We love the land endlessly,”
oblivious to their deeds…
So their love freed them.
See, prison is for lovers.
I interrogated my soul
during moments of doubt and distraction:
“What of your crime?”
Its meaning escapes me now.
I said the thing and
revealed my thoughts;
I wrote about the current injustice,
wishes in ink,
a poem I wrote…
The charge has worn my body,
from my toes to the top of my head,
for I am a poet in prison,
a poet in the land of art.
I am accused of words,
my pen the instrument.
Ink— blood of the heart— bears witness
and reads the charges.
Listen, my destiny, my life,
to what the judge said:
A poem stands accused,
my poem morphs into a crime.
In the land of freedom,
the artist’s fate is prison.
—Written on: November 2, 2015
—Jelemeh Prison: The day I received the indictment

“Israelis cannot generally understand that hurting a national minority under their control . . . will damage the very essence of Israel’s social fabric . . .” (Meir Margalit)

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United Nations Human Rights Day,   December 10, 2016  

Stand up for someone’s rights today!    

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1950, the Assembly passed resolution 423 (V), inviting all States and interested organizations to observe 10 December of each year as Human Rights Day.

230 Palestinian children still kept in Israeli jails
A Palestinian child being brutally detained by Israeli occupation forces, Apr. 5, 2014 (Al-Alam News Network file photo)

❶ . European missions criticize Israel’s administrative detention policy against Palestinians

  • Background:  “Seeking A True Human Rights Agenda.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture

❷ . Israeli forces detain Palestinian youth allegedly crossing Gaza border with weapons

❸ . Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
Stop Israeli Military Detention―SIGN THE PETITION

❹ . Video and pictures: Preventing the body of a Jerusalemite woman from being buried in Al-Rahmeh Gate Cemetery…and arresting two of her grandchildren
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ . EUROPEAN  MISSIONS  CRITICIZE  ISRAEL’S  ADMINISTRATIVE  DETENTION  POLICY  AGAINST  PALESTINIANS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 10, 2016
The European Union (EU) Representative, the EU Heads of Mission and the Heads of Mission of Switzerland and Norway in Jerusalem and Ramallah Friday expressed concern regarding Israel’s excessive use of administrative detention against Palestinians.     ___“The Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah reiterate their longstanding concern about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charge,” they said in a statement.     More . . .

  • Margalit, Meir. “Seeking A True Human Rights Agenda.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 16.2 (2010): 1-6.  ARTICLE.

[. . . .]  Indeed, one difficulty in explaining why people must respect human rights lies in its being not a question of a “need” but of a “value” . . . . Decisions based on values are unconnected to physical and material needs. They are tenuous and, in times of crisis, are the first to vanish. This rule is true of countries with a deeprooted democratic tradition, such as the United States and the United Kingdom after the 9/11 attacks. It is even truer of Israeli society where, since 1967, values have been eroding constantly. Israeli society has developed a mechanism for repressing values that clash with what takes place in the territories . . . The process of denial, which is necessary to preserve the collective mental health, leads to the total disregard of decisions based on values or the debate on questions of human rights.
[. . . .] Because the human rights discourse is identified with the left wing, it has a strong impact on the attitude of alienation that much of Israeli society experiences. In the public imagination, people working for human rights are perceived to be chiefly concerned about Arabs, or homosexuals, or “haters of Israel,” if not worse. . . . Every human rights activist encounters the defiant question, “Why don’t you worry about Jews instead of worrying about Arabs?” — a question with an inherent assumption that concern for human rights undermines Israel’s position. As a result, most of the public shuns the subject.
[. . . .]  Israelis cannot generally understand that hurting a national minority under their control leads to a downhill path which, sooner or later, will damage the very essence of Israel’s social fabric. Perhaps this is because most Israelis were born into a society where their basic human rights were assured and are unaware of the fragility and ease with which they can dissipate and lead a country into dark, undesirable situations. Most Israelis are conformist.   [. . . .]

❷ . ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  PALESTINIAN  YOUTH  ALLEGEDLY  CROSSING  GAZA  BORDER  WITH  WEAPONS  
Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 9, 2016
Israeli forces Friday at dawn detained a Palestinian youth after allegedly “illegally” crossing the border barriers in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media.     ___Several Israeli news outlets claimed that the Palestinian youth was carrying a knife and a grenade when he was detained and taken to interrogation.
___Separately, Israeli forces reportedly detained a Palestinian youth after approaching the Ofer military camp west of Ramallah City in the central occupied West Bank on Thursday.
___Israeli media reported that the youth was “suspicious” which “called for detaining and transferring him for interrogation.”      More . . .

❸ .  STOP  ISRAELI  MILITARY  DETENTION
 Defense For Children International Palestine (DCIP)
Sign the petition
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes around 700 children in military courts each year.
___Three out of every four of these children endure some form of physical violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers or officers following arrest. In 97 percent of the cases, children are interrogated without legal counsel and without their parents.
SIGN THE PETITION HERE.

Palestinians pray beside a grave in a Muslim cemetery just outside Jerusalem's Old City
Mourners at the Muslim cemetery of Bab Al-Rahma outside the Eastern Wall of Jerusalem. Burial in the area began in the 8th century. (Photo: International Business Times, Nov. 3, 2016)

❹ .  VIDEO  AND  PICTURES:  PREVENTING  THE  BODY  OF  A  JERUSALEMITE  WOMAN  FROM  BEING  BURIED  IN  AL-RAHMEH  GATE  CEMETERY…AND  ARRESTING  TWO  OF  HER  GRANDCHILDREN  
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan     
Dec. 5, 2016
The occupation authorities prevented on Monday afternoon the family of the deceased Khadijeh Abu Al-Doleh from being buried in Al-Rahmeh Gate Cemetery that is adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque under the pretext of confiscating the land in favor of the Nature and Parks authority.
___Special Forces surrounded the cemetery on Monday afternoon. When the funeral arrived, they prevented the participants from entering the cemetery and informed them that the location of her grave is confiscated and she can’t be buried there.  More . . . 

“. . . I am accused of words, my pen the instrument. . . .” (Dareen Tatour)

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dareen
Dareen Tatour, who remains under house arrest, reads from one of her notebooks of poems [Nigel Wilson/Al Jazeera]
❶ Report: Israel detaining Palestinian minors without charge over Facebook posts
. . . ❶― (a) Dareen Tatour, Palestinian poet imprisoned by Israel for social media posts, shares her story

  • Background: “Did Facebook intentionally block profiles of Palestinian journalists?” Christian Science Monitor.

❷ Israeli court extends detention of Palestinian football team board member over photo
❸ Israeli PM slams B’Tselem recent statement to UN on settlements
❹ ‘When the media doesn’t talk to Arabs, coverage of them is negative’
❺ POETRY by Dareen Tatour
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ REPORT: ISRAEL DETAINING PALESTINIAN MINORS WITHOUT CHARGE OVER FACEBOOK POSTS
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 17, 2016
At least five Palestinian minors have been imprisoned by Israel without being charged in recent months, after sharing social media posts that Israeli authorities alleged amounted to “incitement” to commit violence, according to a report released Monday by rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).
___Among them was a 17-year-old identified as Ahmad H., who told DCIP that he was interrogated twice in the first week of August for one and three hours, during which time he had neither a parent present nor access to legal counsel.       More . . .  
. . . ❶― (a) DAREEN TATOUR, PALESTINIAN POET IMPRISONED BY ISRAEL FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS, SHARES HER STORY
Salon
Ben Norton
Aug. 10, 2016
Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was arrested because of her posts on social media.
___In October, police raided her home in the middle of the night. They handcuffed Tatour, a 35-year-old poet, and took her away.
___“You look like a terrorist,” an interrogator told her. The Israeli government accused Tatour of inciting violence with her poetry and Facebook posts.       More . . .  

  • Amanda Hoover. “Did Facebook intentionally block profiles of Palestinian journalists?” Christian Science Monitor 26 Sept. 2016: N.PAG.   Full article.

[. . . .] The latest complaints came from four editors at the Shebab News Agency and three executives at Quds News Network, Al Jazeera reported. Quds has about 3.7 million Facebook followers, and has a reputation for being affiliated with Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group and Shehab has about 4.2 million followers and is regarded by Palestinians as being linked with Hamas, a militant group that denies Israel’s right to exist. Both publications, which have several million likes on Facebook each, cover daily news in the occupied West Bank region.
___”[Sharek-Quds News Agency] does not publish anything that violates Facebook standards or that could annoy governments,” Nisreen al-Khatib, a translator and journalist at the Quds News Network, told Al Jazeera. “But still, we are targeted.”
___Since the complaint, Facebook has reinstated several of the accounts, claiming that their censorship was accidental.
___”The pages were removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate,” a Facebook spokesperson tells The Christian Science Monitor in a statement. “Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We’re very sorry about this mistake.”
___Two weeks ago, Israeli officials announced an agreement with Facebook that would allow the two entities to combat online incitement in tandem. The agreement came after multiple requests from Israel that the company find a way to monitor the content on its platform and remove any likely to incite violence.
___In the past, Israeli officials have reported anti-Israel bias on Facebook, as The Christian Science Monitor reported:
___In December, the Tel Aviv-based Israel Law Center conducted an experiment in which it created two Facebook pages: “Stop Palestinians” and “Stop Israel.” Similar content was posted on both pages, including political cartoons with the respective captions “Death to all the Jews” and “Death to all the Arabs.”It then reported both pages to see if either would be removed. The anti-Palestinian page was shut down the same day it was reported, but the anti-Israel page was not.
___During the four months leading up to the agreement with Israel, Facebook had already agreed to remove 95 percent of the 158 posts Israeli officials flagged, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said.   [. . . .]

❷ ISRAELI COURT EXTENDS DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL TEAM BOARD MEMBER OVER PHOTO
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 17, 2016        An Israeli magistrate’s court extended the detention of a Palestinian man who serves on the administrative board of an occupied East Jerusalem football team on Sunday evening, after Israeli officials accused him of publicly supporting “terrorism.”       ___Lawyer Muhammad Mahmoud of prisoners’ rights group Addameer told Ma’an on Sunday evening that a Jerusalem court had extended to Wednesday the remand of Maher Abu Sneina, an administrative member of the Palestinian Hilal al-Quds football team.       More . . .   

football-001
Fans of the Scottish Celtic Football Club waved Palestinian flags during game against the Israeli Hapoel Beersheba club on Wed, Aug. 16, 2016. (Photo: Ma’an News Agency)

❸ ISRAELI PM SLAMS B’TSELEM RECENT STATEMENT TO UN ON SETTLEMENTS
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Oct. 18, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Saturday, accusing it joining the “chorus of slander” against Israel.       ___Netanyahu’s position came after the human rights NGO participated in informal UN Security Council session on Friday in which its representative slammed Israeli settlements in the West Bank, calling them obstacles to peace.       More . . .     
❹ ‘WHEN THE MEDIA DOESN’T TALK TO ARABS, COVERAGE OF THEM IS NEGATIVE’
+972 Magazine from The Seventh Eye*
Oren Persico
Oct. 16, 2016

* The Seventh Eye is Israel’s only independent media watchdog, since 1996.

The participation of Arab interviewees in Israeli news items relating to Arab society in the country has a  correlation on the content and tone of the reporting, new research published by Israeli NGO Sikkuy last month has concluded. (Full disclosure: The Seventh Eye partnered with Sikkuy for its ‘Representation Index’ project.)
___The research project, conducted by Edan Ring along with the Ifat Group, examined news coverage of Arab citizens of Israel in the Hebrew-language media during October 2015, a month in which a serious escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took place, including almost daily attacks against Jewish Israelis.        More . . .  

“A Poet Behind Bars,” By Dareen Tatour
Translated by Tariq al Haydar

In prison, I met people
too numerous to count:
Killer and criminal,
thief and liar,
the honest and those who disbelieve,
the lost and confused,
the wretched and the hungry.
Then, the sick of my homeland,
born out of pain,
refused to go along with injustice
until they became children whose innocence was violated.
The world’s compulsion left them stunned.
They grew older.
No, their sadness grew,
strengthening with repression,
like roses in salted soil.
They embraced love without fear,
and were condemned for declaring,
“We love the land endlessly,”
oblivious to their deeds…
So their love freed them.
See, prison is for lovers.
I interrogated my soul
during moments of doubt and distraction:
“What of your crime?”
Its meaning escapes me now.
I said the thing and
revealed my thoughts;
I wrote about the current injustice,
wishes in ink,
a poem I wrote…
The charge has worn my body,
from my toes to the top of my head,
for I am a poet in prison,
a poet in the land of art.
I am accused of words,
my pen the instrument.
Ink— blood of the heart— bears witness
and reads the charges.
Listen, my destiny, my life,
to what the judge said:
A poem stands accused,
my poem morphs into a crime.
In the land of freedom,
the artist’s fate is prison.
—Written on: November 2, 2015,  Jelemeh Prison

 

 

“. . . I have nightmares. Sometimes I dream that the police are in my house coming to take me . . .” (Muslim Odeh, 12 years old)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
funeral
Funeral of 13-year-old Ahmad Sharaka at Jalazone Refugee Camp, West Bank, Oct. 12, 2015 (Photo: Still from Youtube)

❶ 20 Palestinians injured, 1 critically, after Israeli forces violently disperse march

  • Background:  “Childhood: A Universalist Perspective For How Israel Is Using Child Arrest And Detention To Further Its Colonial Settler Project.” International Journal Of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies

❷ IOF arrests six Jerusalemites
❸ Military Court Watch (monitoring the treatment of children in detention)
❹ Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ 20  PALESTINIANS  INJURED,  1  CRITICALLY,  AFTER  ISRAELI  FORCES  VIOLENTLY  DISPERSE  MARCH
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 15, 2016
Some 20 Palestinians were injured Saturday evening — one critically with a live bullet to the head — during clashes at the main entrance to the al-Jalazun refugee camp in northern Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank, following a march commemorating the FIRST  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  KILLING  OF  13-YEAR-OLD  AHMAD  SHARAKA, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces last year during clashes.     ___Palestinian youth threw rocks, Molotov cocktails, and empty bottles at Israeli soldiers who attempted to disperse the demonstration by firing live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas canisters at the dozens of participants in the march, before Israeli soldiers eventually retreated to the illegal Israeli Beit El settlement.        More . . .       Background . . .

  • Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera. “Childhood: A Universalist Perspective For How Israel Is Using Child Arrest And Detention To Further Its Colonial Settler Project.” International Journal Of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 12.3 (2015): 223-244.   Source . . .  

As defined by the World Health Organization, child maltreatment, which is sometimes referred to as child abuse and neglect, includes all forms of physical and emotional ill treatment, sexual abuse, neglect and exploitation that results in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, development or dignity.
[. . . .]
Muslim Odeh was first arrested at age nine. Now 12 years old, Odeh has been imprisoned 10 times over the course of three years. Odeh’s arrest scenarios violate a number of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) stipulations and recommendations made by UNICEF, including arrest during early morning hours (Recommendation 3i), blindfolding (Recommendation 4iii; Recommendation 4v), and hours of interrogation without parental or legal supervision or knowledge of charges (Article 37c; Article 37d). Odeh also recalls being beaten to the point where he vomited. The aftermath of his arrests reveal that Odeh suffered not only physical pain, but also psychological trauma: “I have nightmares. Sometimes I dream that the police are in my house coming to take me, but then I wake up to see that I’m not in prison but in my house.” Odeh’s reaction to his ordeals – the apprehension he now feels when sleeping in his own bed, for example – illustrates the extent to which Israeli state violence invades even the most intimate everyday sphere. Odeh’s case shows that within Israel’s established state framework, United Nations Conventions are overridden and disregarded with impunity. International and human rights law fails to apply to the state apparatus or moral consciousness. Instead, children such as Odeh are rendered “non-children” who fail to qualify for basic human protection.
[. . . .]     Israel is the only known country in the world to try children in juvenile military courts. Despite the nomenclature, the juvenile military court uses the same facilities and court staff as the adult military court. The extra-judicial military court established solely for trying children negates Israel’s responsibility, not just to the UNCRC, but also the Geneva and Hague Conventions. This juvenile military court is rife with injustice and discriminatory practices. For example, children are not accompanied by a lawyer or parent during their interrogations, and are often unaware of the allegations that have been made against them.
[. . . .]    . . . institutionalized violence embedded in Israel’s settler colonial project has come to accept the stealing of childhood – the criminalization and suffering of children – as unavoidable and “normal.” As the earlier evidence makes abundantly clear, Palestinian children are becoming, with greater frequency and more intense efforts, the major targets of Israel’s eliminatory state violence. Israel employs a number of tactics – discriminatory arrests, home demolitions, forced evictions, brutal interrogations, torture within prison systems, inequitable practices in the juvenile military court – that traumatize Palestinian children. These efforts to marginalize and terrorize Palestinian children, sometimes before they are even born, highlight the security regime’s designation of such children as a threat to the state. Palestinian children comprise approximately 50 percent of the entire Palestinian population and are therefore an important factor in the future and success of the Israeli Zionist project. Thus, the maltreatment of Palestinian children plays an important role in propagating the structure of Israeli settler colonialism.

❷ IOF  ARRESTS  SIX  JERUSALEMITES
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Oct. 16, 2016
Israeli occupation authorities arrested Sunday at dawn six Jerusalemites after raiding their houses in Silwan and Old City in occupied Jerusalem.
___The head of the committee of Jerusalemite detainees’ families, Amjad Abu Asab said that the IOF ARRESTED  TWO  YOUTHS  AND  THREE  MINORS  FROM  SILWAN.
___It also arrested a 50-old man after raiding his house in the Old City. The IOF took all of them to al-Muskubīya interrogation center.      More . . .    

❸ MILITARY  COURT  WATCH  (MONITORING  THE  TREATMENT  OF  CHILDREN  IN  DETENTION)
Briefing Note – October 2016
[. . . .]    According to the most recent IPS data, 414  CHILDREN  (12-17 YEARS)  WERE  HELD  IN  MILITARY  DETENTION  AT  THE  END  OF  APRIL  2016. This represents a 91 per cent increase compared with the monthly average for 2015. The latest data includes 12 girls; three children under 14 years; and 13 children held without charge or trial in administrative detention.       More . . .    

❹ Source for continuing coverage:
DEFENSE  FOR  CHILDREN  INTERNATIONAL  PALESTINE  (DCIP)  

“. . . Whenever a child’s voice goes silent . . .” (Maya Abu Al-Hayyat)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
proststhesis
AL Jaad 6 years old at the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center in Gaza City. He lost his right leg when an Israeli tank shell hit his home 2014. (Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/Getty Images)

❶ Five days, four children shot dead

  • Background from Third World Quarterly

❷ Israeli soldiers attack the weekly protest in Kufur Qaddoum
❸ ANALYSIS: Israel left me with half a body
❹ POETRY by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶  FIVE  DAYS,  FOUR  CHILDREN  SHOT  DEAD
Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
Sep. 22, 2016
Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinian children in Hebron, during the most concentrated period of deadly violence in the West Bank since June.
___In separate incidents between September 16 and September 20, four Palestinian teenagers were fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in Hebron. Seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers in less than a week, marking the highest concentration of Palestinian deaths since June, when three Palestinians were killed in under 48 hours, according to Ma’an News Agency. Earlier this month, another child, Abdul-Rahman Dabbagh, was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in Gaza.
___“International law requires that intentional lethal force is only used when lesser means would be insufficient to apprehend a suspect,” said Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at DCIP. “Recent evidence suggests that Israeli forces are implementing a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, yet systemic impunity is normal and accountability extremely rare.”     MORE . . . 

  • Dossa, Shiraz. “Auschwitz’s Finale: Racism and Holocausts.” Third World Quarterly 33.9 (2012): 1575-1593.   SOURCE.

It was clear to [Hannah] Arendt that Israel was crafting a new ‘regime of truth’. . . who can say ‘what counts as true’. This rhetoric has become a real presence in the West. It has metastasised into a global truth and it controls much of the narrative on Muslims. Western foreign policy is substantially based on this ‘truth’. . .  The disdain for Palestinians flows from it as well. Any opposition to it is labelled anti-Semitic (as in hating Jews); resistance in Occupied Palestine is quelled by F16s and military invasions. The West sells this as stability and peace. To reject it is to rebuff human rights, freedom and democracy.
___. . . . Hating Arabs is normal and calling Palestinians the new Nazis obligatory. Loving Israel is a sign of tolerance, opposing its policies is ‘terrorism’. So is being Muslim, since Islam is deemed violent by nature. Critics of the Jewish/Israel lobby are branded ‘hateful’. Arendt understood that the Zionist settlers in Palestine had pioneered this logic: ‘they did not even to stop to think of the very existence of Arabs’. . .
[. . . .]
The ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust flows from Ashkenazi pride in their racial superiority. Its corollary is not denied but defended: non-Jews count for very little, which can be traced back to the Old Testament thesis on the acceptability of the Canaanite genocide because Yahweh willed it . . .  It is evident that the chosen Jew–unchosen non-Jew divide has been globalised. It is even accepted by many ‘Third world’ elites . . . who endorse the US–Israeli agenda without demurral. Its legitimacy, its ‘truth’ has long been settled.
[. . . .]
It comes as no surprise that the self-described ‘Jewish state’ occupies Palestinian land, terrorises its inhabitants, builds illegal settlements, and violates international law. It is the proudly ‘Jewish state’ which slays Arabs in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank at will. It is Western Jews who invoke the Old Testament and Western civilisation to defend invasion and occupation. Yet Jews routinely, 67 years after the Holocaust, still claim to be victims. In 2008 Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned that ‘The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies . . . they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust’.  (Ynet News, ‘Israeli minister warns Palestinians of ‘‘holocaust’”, Reuters, 29 February 2008.)

kqaddoum06172016-e1466204070505
Many Injured As Israeli Soldiers Attack The Weekly Protest In Kufur Qaddoum, Jun. 18, 2016 (Photo: IMEMC News)

❷ ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  ATTACK  THE  WEEKLY  PROTEST  IN  KUFUR  QADDOUM
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
September 24, 2016
Israeli soldiers attacked, Friday, many local and international activists, holding the weekly protest in Kufur Qaddoum village, in the northern West Bank district of Qalqilia, causing scores to suffer the effects of teargas inhalation.
___The protesters marched from the center of the village raising Palestinian flags and carrying posters of the detainees who ended their hunger strikes after reaching agreements for their release after extended strikes.
___The Popular Committee in Kufur Qaddoum said scores of locals, and international activists, suffered the effects of teargas inhalation, after the soldiers assaulted the protest.       MORE . . .  

qaddoum
Israeli Soldiers Attack The Weekly Protest In Kufur Qaddoum, Mar. 27, 2015 (Photo: IMEMC News)

❸ ANALYSIS:  ISRAEL  LEFT  ME  WITH  HALF  A BODY 
The Electronic Intifada
Sarah Algherbawi
Sep. 20, 2016
Manar al-Shenbari has vague recollections of what happened on 24 July 2014. She was taking shelter at the UNRWA Beit Hanoun Elementary School in the Gaza Strip when the Israeli military shelled it. Manar’s mother, sister and two brothers were among the 11 people killed at the UN-funded school.
___“There were bodies on the ground, people screaming,” she said. “And lots of blood on my body. Those are the only things I can remember from that day. It was like a nightmare. I lost consciousness and woke up in hospital.”
___Manar – now aged 17 – lost both of her legs in the attack and required emergency treatment. She was transferred to Jordan for surgery. When she returned to Gaza, she found everyday life extremely difficult.     MORE . . .  

“CHILDREN,” BY MAYA ABU AL-HAYYAT
Whenever a child’s hand comes out of a collapsed building
I check the hands of my three children
I count the digits of their hands and feet
I check the number of teeth
and the hairs of their eyebrows

Whenever a child’s voice goes silent in Camp Al Yarmouk

I turn up the volume on the TV
and the songs on the radio
I pinch my three children on their sides
to keep them moving and feel they’re alive

Whenever a heart is devoured by fear
on Qalandia checkpoint
I open my mouth and start to eat
Comfort myself with salty treats
Bock out the sparks of the eyes that cry everywhere
―translated by Graham Fulton

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is a prize-winning author of novels, poetry, and short stories. Born in Lebanon, she has a degree in Civil Engineering from Al-Najah University in Nablus, the largest Palestinian university, and lives in Ramallah.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available From Amazon.com.
Maya Abu Al-Hayyat reading one of her poems

 

“. . . I’ll watch you grow between my heart and the highest high . . .” (Ramzy Baroud)

Harold Knight4 Comments
warning
After ransacking the home and threatening the family, Saed said the soldiers hung a written warning on the front door, addressing the family as well as all residents of Sair–see #1 below. (Photo: Ma’an News Agency, Sep. 4, 2016)

❶ Witnesses: Israeli forces ransack home of slain Palestinian, threaten to detain 10-month-old girl

  • Background from Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. “. . . In summary, regardless of the terms used, intergenerational trauma in occupied Palestine needs to be understood as a consequence of historic and collective trauma and loss . . . .”

❷ Back-to-school in Tel Rumeida, a closed military zone

  • Background from Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma.  “. . .children in occupied Palestine experience trauma embedded within the fabric of daily life. . . . ongoing acts of racism, discrimination and daily harassments.” 

❸ 18-year-old daughter of Palestinian prisoner hugs her father for the first time ever
❹ POETRY by Ramzy Baroud
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ WITNESSES:  ISRAELI  FORCES  RANSACK  HOME  OF  SLAIN  PALESTINIAN,  THREATEN  TO  DETAIN  10-MONTH-OLD  GIRL 
Ma’an News Agency 
Sep. 4, 2016
Israeli troops stormed the town of Sair in the Hebron district of the southern occupied West Bank early Sunday morning, where they ransacked the home of a slain Palestinian and reportedly threatened to detain the deceased man’s 10-month-old daughter.  ___According to witnesses, Israeli troops raided the home of the family of Fadi Faroukh, who was shot and killed on Nov. 1, 2015 in the eastern Hebron village of Beit Einun after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier.
___Fadi’s brother Saed told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers “destroyed the interior of the house” before they “threatened to detain Fadi’s 10-month-old daughter.”
___After ransacking the home and threatening the family, Saed said the soldiers hung a written warning on the front door, addressing the family as well as all residents of Sair.  ___“In the wake of destructive attacks coming from your area against civilians, the Israeli defense forces and the Israeli security forces will operate with increased effort against terrorists and against anyone involved in such activity,” the warning read.       MORE . . .

  • Barron, Ian, and Ghassan Abdallah. “Intergenerational Trauma In The Occupied Palestinian Territories: Effect On Children And Promotion Of Healing.” Journal Of Child & Adolescent Trauma 8.2 (2015): 103-110.  SOURCE.    (The article is available through any library with EBSCO data bases).

Ongoing trauma within any community impacts at a variety of levels, e.g., historical trauma narratives, cultural beliefs about oppression, political and military aggression, the extent of mental illness in the community and the undermining of trust within social contexts [are] the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next. . . .  Mass trauma [is] trauma that occurs as a result of a frightening, threatening event that is experienced by a large number of people simultaneously The ongoing military occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza . . . [go] beyond the focus of single events to recognize these more pervasive aspects of trauma over time [and are] collective complex trauma inflicted on a group of people who share a specific group identity or. . .  It is the legacy of numerous traumatic events a community experiences over generations and encompasses the psychological and social responses to such events.
[. . . .]
In summary, regardless of the terms used, intergenerational trauma in occupied Palestine needs to be understood as a consequence of historic and collective trauma and loss, occurring within an extended period of subjugation and impacting at child, family and community levels. . . .

hebron
Child walking to school in Tel Rumeida (Photo: Chelli Stanley/Glasgow-Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Tel Rumeida Project)

❷ BACK-TO-SCHOOL  IN  TEL  RUMEIDA,  A  CLOSED  MILITARY  ZONE  
Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)    
Aug. 30, 2016
Palestinian children in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, located in the southern part of the West Bank, returned to school on August 28 with no end to the Israeli-enforced military closure of their neighborhood in sight.
___Despite rays of hope last May, when the military order closing the area lapsed, Tel Rumeida neighborhood has remained functionally closed to non-residents since November 1, 2015. Residents must register in order to enter via checkpoint. Each is assigned an individual number, separate from their standard-issued ID. Closed military zones pose staffing problems for schools and risks for children, who are forced to live in constant proximity to armed Israeli soldiers.
___“Each child should have the chance to succeed at school,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program Director at Defense for Children International – Palestine. “Before children in Tel Rumeida even reach their school, their academic potential is threatened by Israeli military installments restricting their movements, and by Israeli settlers who often target them.”      MORE . . .

  • Barron, Ian, and Ghassan Abdallah. “Intergenerational Trauma In The Occupied Palestinian Territories: Effect On Children And Promotion Of Healing.”

___ In addition to traumatic loss from war events . . .  children in occupied Palestine experience trauma embedded within the fabric of daily life. Set within the Colonial Trauma Response . . .  [these are] . . . . ongoing acts of racism, discrimination and daily harassments. While acts of micro-aggression can appear small, the impact on those receiving such acts may be significant, e.g. anxiety and fear. Micro-aggressions can be chronic in nature and involve subtle rather than overt acts of violence. . . . Within occupied Palestine, children walking to school, can experience the micro-aggression of derogatory comments from groups of youths. These can experienced as intimidating, especially when these have on occasion led to overt violence. Another micro-aggression could be to hear a political discourse from Israel and other international countries denying the existence of Palestine. In this regard, it is argued, children can become disenfranchised, on a day to day basis, from national identity. The experience of daily, weekly, or monthly discrimination is significant for intergenerational trauma, in that both can lead to increased cumulative physical and mental health difficulties.
___The impact on children of daily life humiliations, violence, traumatic loss, and traumatized parents fails to be captured by the concept of post-traumatic stress. . . .  Developmental trauma . . . includes multiple exposure to a range of interpersonal trauma, e.g. experiencing and/or witnessing physical, sexual, emotional abuse, betrayal, abandonment and neglect. The impact of developmental trauma is pervasive and often predictable covering a wide range of functioning. These experiences engender (i) intense affects such as rage, betrayal, fear, resignation, defeat and shame and (ii) efforts to ward off the recurrence of those emotions, including the avoidance of experiences that precipitate them or engaging in behaviors that convey a subjective sense of control in the face of potential threats. . . .
 [. . . .]    As well as traumatic events shaping identity, political and military messages may also impact children’s sense of self. For example, what are children to think of themselves when Israeli military identify children as terrorists or when they experience the world’s inaction to the plight of Palestinian families? Even in the Arab, world messages are mixed, e.g., the “dirty Arabs.”

❸ 18-YEAR-OLD  DAUGHTER  OF  PALESTINIAN  PRISONER  HUGS  HER  FATHER  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME  EVER
Ma’an News Agency  
Aug. 28, 2016
The 18-year-old daughter of a Palestinian prisoner serving a life sentence in Israeli prison was able to hug her father for the first time in her life on Sunday, according to Sawt al-Asra (Voice of the Prisoners) radio.
___Yara al-Sharabati, the daughter of 49-year-old Palestinian prisoner Ayman al-Sharabati from occupied East Jerusalem, was recently granted permission to visit her father after being banned from visits for the past three years.
___The teenager, who had reportedly only ever seen her father through a barrier, was allowed to embrace him for the first time in her life, as he was detained before she was born.      MORE . . .

“LULLABY,”  BY  RAMZY  BAROUD
I’ll etch your name
on a secret star
we’ll both go there
on frightful nights

when Mother Earth
runs out of room
for you and me

I’ll hold you tight
and sing you songs
of a distant land
beyond the stars

and watch you grow
between my heart
and the highest high

I’ll draw your face
on a single seed
and hold your palm
to face the sun

when you’re awake
and call out my name
don’t moan or cry

I’ll return
to raise your hand
at a shooting star
and with for you

another day
another sun
another world

where Palestine
is a mountain top
of soil and air
and a purple sky

For (Miriam), a refugee child from Palestine

Ramzy Baroud’s Website.
From: I  REMEMBER  MY  NAME:  Poetry  by  Samah  Sabawi,  Ramzy  Baroud,  Jehan  Bseiso. Vacy Vlanzna, ed. London: Novum Publishing, 2016. Available from Barnes and Noble.

 

“. . . How is the message to reach you Deaf Washington . . .” (Samih Al-Qasim)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
mourning
An aunt of Muhammad Abu Latifa at his funeral in Qalandia Refugee Camp, July 27, 2015. Abu Latifa was killed while fleeing Israeli special police during an arrest raid. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org) SEE NUMBER 5 BELOW.

❶ Group: 41 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces since October
❷ Israeli Soldiers Kidnap Three Palestinians, Injure a Child, In Jerusalem
❸ Israel to build 1000 housing units in O. J’lem
❹ Netanyahu: the magician
❺ Opinion/Analysis:  WHAT  DO  ISRAELIS  REALLY  KNOW  ABOUT  PALESTINIAN  SUFFERING?
❻ Poetry by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ GROUP:  41  PALESTINIAN  CHILDREN  KILLED  BY  ISRAELI  FORCES  SINCE  OCTOBER
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
5 Mar. 2016
Forty-one Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied Palestinian territory since October, Defense for Children International’s Palestine branch (DCIP) reported Friday.
___All were killed as a “direct result of intensified violence,” DCIP said in a statement, and all but one were killed by Israeli military forces.
___The number includes 31 Palestinians under the age of 18 . . . .      MORE . . .
❷ ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  KIDNAP  THREE  PALESTINIANS,  INJURE  A  CHILD,  IN  JERUSALEM
IMEMC NEWS
5 Mar. 2016
Israeli soldiers have kidnapped, on Friday evening, two Palestinian men in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, after a number of Israeli extremists assaulted them. Army also kidnaped a Palestinian man in Silwan; clashes took place in Silwan, and Abu Dis; one child injured.      MORE . . .
❸ ISRAEL  TO  BUILD  1000  HOUSING  UNITS  IN  O. J’LEM
THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
4 Mar. 2016
An Israeli weekly newspaper revealed that Israeli government is advancing construction plans to build about 1,000 housing units in four illegal settlements in occupied Jerusalem despite the stiff international criticism. Kol Ha’ir Hebrew newspaper said that Israeli settlement construction is continuing within the existing settlements in occupied Jerusalem under the supervision of the Israeli government.      MORE . . .

netan
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defies the odds and maintains his fragile rule. (Photo: Alternative Information Center.)

❹ NETANYAHU:  THE  MAGICIAN
ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER
Hani Habib
I have often described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a magician in my articles, perhaps too often. Yet today I am compelled to use this moniker yet again, in light of my apparently incorrect sense of his government’s (in)stability.
___I expected Netanyahu’s government to be destabilized as a result of its failure to halt the third intifada . . .
Yet I see now that contrary to all indications, Netanyahu’s government remains surprisingly stable.  MORE . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis:  WHAT  DO  ISRAELIS  REALLY  KNOW  ABOUT  PALESTINIAN  SUFFERING?
+972 BLOG
Ksenia Svetlova

The writer is a Knesset Member with the Zionist Union, and an expert on Middle East and Arab affairs. This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call.

5 Mar. 2016
Yoaz Hendel, a former director of communications for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote . . . addressing a topic that has became popular: why Palestinians don’t experience bereavement. Or in other words, why are we better than the Palestinians and why are they worse than us. . . . “The difference between bereavements is obvious. There is a gaping chasm between Palestinian and Israeli societies.”
___The first question that beckons is: How much do you really know Palestinian society, Yoaz?      MORE . . .

“THE  UNKNOWN  CONTINENT,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
How do we reach you
Slums of Chicago?
How is the spark to reach you?
How is the fire to be born?
Skyscrapers!
Stacked huts!
Stretch your arms out of the darkness―
For the big banner
Spreads its warmth, its light
Forever
Into the depths of night
And the big banner is
Forever
A sail for the drowning.

How are the storms to reach you

Jazzband Club in New York?
The black man is hungry and fearful
The wolves of the KKK roam the forest
―the current overpowering
And the conscience of the statue shaken
And the heart of night.
The wind is frozen,
And the waves of the sea unmoving?
How is the message to reach you
Deaf Washington,
With the humming of the machine?
In Vietnam you slaughter
And you export
Cokes and medicine to the sad moon!
And you sweep over the blood of victims.
How is the message to reach you?

Descendants of Ole Abe!
My voice has become hoarse
And the wind
Has become tired of my shouts!

Descendants of Old Abe!
Shake the marble of history,
Rise to the sky,
Rise above the band of stupid maggis
And halt ―for
The earth grumbles
Rivers of blood.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE.  Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
About Samih Al-Qasim

“. . . when I am led all alone to be whipped and humiliated . . . at every police station. . .” (‘Abd Al-Latif ‘Aql)

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Ofer Prison, Occupied Territories. Ofer Prison is run by the Israel Prison Service and used to be operated by the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Police Corps. It holds about 1,100 Palestinian prisoners both those under administrative detention and those who have been tried and sentenced. Among them are children. (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 5, 2015)

❶ Nearly 400 Palestinian children held in Israeli jails
❷ UN submission: Unlawful transfer of protected persons
❸ Pollard Released After 30 Years in Prison
❹ Army Kidnaps Fifteen Palestinians in Hebron
❺ Opinion/Analysis: ‘It Has Become a Prison’: The ghettoization of Hebron
❻ Poetry by ‘Abd Al-Latif ‘Aql
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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
NEARLY  400  PALESTINIAN  CHILDREN  HELD  IN  ISRAELI  JAILS
Nov. 20, 2015
RAMALLAH ― A prisoners’ rights group said Friday that nearly 400 Palestinian children between the ages of 11 and 17 are currently being held in Israeli jails.
___The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement that 11 of those detained were being held without charge or trial under administration detention orders. . . .
___Some 700 children have been detained since the beginning of October — mainly in the Hebron and Jerusalem districts — many of whom were released under specific conditions including bail or house arrest, the society said.
More . . .
❷ MILITARY COURT WATCH
UN  SUBMISSION:  UNLAWFUL  TRANSFER  OF  PROTECTED  PERSONS
Nov. 12, 2015
MCW lodged a submission with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention relating to the unlawful transfer and detention of Palestinian minors from the West Bank to prisons located inside Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
___According to evidence provided by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) an average of 88 per cent of Palestinian detainees from the West Bank, including minors, are transferred and detained inside Israel. It is currently estimated that this affects between 7,000 to 8,000 Palestinians each year and is classified under international law as a war crime.
More . . .

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The gate to Ofer Prison. (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 5, 2015)

❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
POLLARD  RELEASED  AFTER  30  YEARS  IN  PRISON
Nov. 21, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Friday, addressed American spy, Jonathan Pollard, who was released on parole after serving 30 years in prison, after handing over top-secret classified information to Israel.
___“The people of Israel welcome the release of Jonathan Pollard,” the PM said in a video statement. “As someone who has raised his case among successive US presidents many times, I longed for this day,” Netanyahu continued.
___The former intelligence analyst for the US government was arrested in 1985, and pleaded guilty in 1987, to charges in violation of the Espionage Act.
More . . .
❹ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
ARMY  KIDNAPS  FIFTEEN  PALESTINIANS  IN  HEBRON
Nov. 21, 2015
Israeli soldiers invaded, on Saturday at dawn, the southern West Bank district of Hebron, searched dozens of homes and kidnapped fifteen Palestinians.
___The soldiers invaded the Joret Bahlas area, north of Hebron city, and various neighborhoods before kidnapping the Palestinians.
___Local sources said the soldiers kidnapped Ismael Taiseer Bader, 44, Luay Faisal al-Hashlamoun, 30, Adel al-Eeda al-Herbawi, 48, Othman Sharif Tamimi, 18, Nader Hamed Natsha, Mohammad Ali al-Qawasma, and Ezzat Sha’ban al-Khatib, after violently storming their homes and searching them, in Hebron city.
___ The army also invaded Deir Samet village, southwest of Hebron, searched homes and kidnapped . . .
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
MONDOWEISS
‘IT  HAS  BECOME  A  PRISON’:  THE  GHETTOIZATION  OF  HEBRON
Megan Hanna
Nov. 11, 2015
Hebron’s Old City, located in the “H2 area” under full Israeli military control, is subject to dramatic new restrictions introduced last week. Israeli soldiers seized several homes in the Tel Rumedia area and barred the residents from going in or out, declaring the area a military zone and banning access to non-residents, in a move that parallels security restrictions imposed recently upon areas of East Jerusalem.
Since the beginning of last month 22 Palestinians have been killed in Hebron, and nine in the Old City that has been the epicentre of escalating tensions.
___Even for the 50 families who live in Tel Rumeida, who had a mere few days to register their name and ID card to the Israeli authorities, the plans will severely restrict their freedom of movement, as they will have to undergo rigorous security searches every time they wish to leave or enter their homes.
___According to a resident of Tel Rumeida, “They told me I have the number 36 [on the list with who’s allowed to go in and out], it’s just like in prison. They try to make you a number, you’re not a person”.
More . . .

(Palestinian poets frequently use the image of “lover” for Palestine.)

“LOVE  PALESTINIAN-STYLE,”  BY  ‘ABD AL-LATIF ‘AQL

In times of drought you are my figs and olives,
Your barrenness is my fragrant gown.

Of the rubble that was your eyes I erect my home,
I love you alive, I love you in death.
When hungry, I feed on thyme.

I feel your hair against my face and I pine,
My weary face turns red.

I am born in the palms of your hands, and embryo,
I grow and grow, and I reach maturity.

I drink the meaning of my life from your gaze,
Then my being is awakened and is intoxicated.

I journey across frontiers, you are my suitcase,
You are my forged passport.

I boast that I can smuggle your eyes
Across borders;
I boast and boast and pride surges within me.

And when soldiers confiscate you,
Even before hashish,
And gouge the pupils of my eyes,

I feel I have been cleansed of the shame;
I have become purer
And more immaculate.

When they fear what may be under my armpits,
They confine me in small cells;
I sign your name
At the end of police reports.

And when I am led all alone
To be whipped and humiliated,
And lashed at every police station,
I feel we’re lovers, who died from ecstasy,
A dark-skinned man and his woman.

You become me and I become you―
Luscious figs and shelled almonds.
And when soldiers smash my head
And force me to sip the cold of prison
To forget you―I love you even more.

‘Abd Al-Latif ‘Aql was born in 1942 in Deir Istiya, a village near Nablus. His family was exiled in 1948, and he lived in Amman and studied in Damasus and the U.S. where earned a PhD in social psychology. He worked as a school teacher in the West Bank for many years. He has published many volumes of poetry. His two plays incurred the wrath of the Israelis, and were forced to end performance at Bir Zeit University.
___From: A  LOVER  FROM  PALESTINE  AND  OTHER  POEMS:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  PALESTINIAN  POETRY. Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.
Available from Abe Books. 

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Employee parking, Ofer Prison. (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 5, 2015)