Tag: Defense for Children International-Palestine

“. . . 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 . . . .  

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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

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

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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.)

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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 . . .  

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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

 

“. . . 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 . . .

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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

“Despite the contradicting photographs pundits and lobbyists concurred. . .” (Samuel Hazo)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Tear Gas and Flowers
Tear Gas and Flowers

❶ from +972
PHOTOS: ANSWERING TEAR GAS WITH FLOWERS
Photos and text by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org
April 14, 2015
Every Friday residents of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, along with Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, attempt to march to the village’s spring. The small spring was taken over by Israeli settlers from the nearby settlement of Halamish years ago, and the Israeli army now prevents Palestinians from reaching it.
___Before the protest this past Friday, children from Nabi Saleh placed flowers they picked from the surrounding hills into spent tear gas canisters fired at protesters in weeks past. The children of Nabi Saleh take part in the protests against the occupation on a weekly basis.
(More . . .)

❷ from PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: ISRAEL WILLFULLY TARGETED, MURDERED GAZA CHILDREN
By PNN/ Bethlehem/
April 19, 2015
A new report by DCIP (Defense for Children International—Palestine) titled “Operation Protective Edge: A War Waged On Gaza’s Children,” displayed documented events proving that that Israel has deliberately murdered Palestinian children in its last offensive on Gaza last summer.
___According to the report, the number of children killed in the last summer offensive on Gaza hit 535, a majority of them under the age 12. Another 3,400 children were injured – over 1,000 maimed for life. They need vital medical care unavailable because of Israel’s lawless siege – ongoing aggression by any standard with full US-led Western support.
(More. . .)
caught-in-clashes-large❸ from +972
WHEN SHOOTING A PALESTINIAN IN THE BACK IS MERELY ‘RECKLESS’
Why trust the military to investigate itself when soldiers who kill unarmed Palestinians are let off the hook time and time again?
By Alma Biblash
April 15, 2015
In January 2013, an Israeli soldier shot a 16-year-old Palestinian who posed absolutely no threat in his back. Samir Awad, from the village Budrus, didn’t survive the valiant military operation, and was killed. Last December, the High Court of Justice harshly criticized the Military Advocate General’s (MAG) handling of the case calling on it to finish its investigation.
___On Tuesday, the State announced that it would charge the soldier reckless and negligent use of a firearm. Had the incident not ended with the death of a teenager, it could have come off as no more than a silly act of mischief.
___Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which accompanied the Awad family throughout the legal process, called the decision a “new low . . .”
(More . . . )

❹ from PALESTINE INFORMATION CENTER
PALESTINIAN CHILD RELEASED AFTER FOUR MONTHS IN ISRAELI JAIL
April 17, 2015
RAMALLAH, (PIC) — The Israeli prison authority on Thursday afternoon released 15-year-old Khaled al-Sheikh from Ofer prison.
___The child’s father, Hosam al-Sheikh, told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) yesterday that the Israeli authorities told him of their intention to release his son.
___“His mother, brothers, and myself are currently at the Ofer jail to make the necessary arrangements for Khaled’s release and we informed the authorities on the matter,” the father said.
___Khaled, kidnapped on December 25 from Anan village in Ramallah, was sentenced to a four-month prison term and fined 2,000 shekels.
(More. . . )

❺ from MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES CONTINUE TO TARGET BILIN, 2 PROTESTERS SHOT
Ma’an – RAMALLAH
(Updated) April 18, 2015
Two Palestinians were shot, one with live fire, and up to 60 protesters suffered excessive tear gas inhalation when Israeli forces violently suppressed the Bilin weekly march on Friday.
___Hundreds of Palestinians are reported to have taken part in the march against the separation wall, also marking Palestinian Prisoner’s Day.
___Israeli forces fired live and rubber-coated steel bullets at the protesters as well as tear-gas canisters.
___Ahmad Mohammad Mansour, 17, was shot in the chest with a live bullet and was taken to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, while Munther Ameera was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the lower extremities and treated on the scene.
(More. . .)

❻ from US PALESTINAIN COMMUNITY NETWORK
#BOYCOTTCOKE: BDS FORUM IN MINNEAPOLIS APRIL 19
Sunday, April 19 at 2pm
4200 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis
In 2005, Palestinians issued a call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, because of its violations of international law and attacks on Palestinian rights. BDS is now a worldwide movement against Israeli Apartheid, and the governments, corporations and other institutions that support it. Many Twin Cities organizations have taken up this call, and will share their experiences and strategies.
(More. . .)

“INTIFADA,” BY SAMUEL HAZO

Singly at first, then doubly
then slowly by the tens or twenties,
then steadily on . . .

Interviewed
about the deathcount in Ramallah,
one sergeant said, “We’ll kill
them all, but we’ll never
forgive them for making us do it.”

Later he aimed his Uzi at a boy
armed with a stone and a slingshot,
One general claimed his soldiers
fired only rubber-coated bullets.
When asked about the difference
to the dead, he frowned and shouted,
“Their leaders and parents use
these children as human shields.”
Despite the contradicting photographs
pundits and lobbyists concurred.
After all, who could deny
that boys with all their lives
ahead of them would happily
seek execution, that mothers loved
to see their sons in open
coffins, that choosing a brave
death instead of a lifelong one
was an option for fools?

No one
would claim that occupation
to the occupied resembled daily
suffocation.
No one would add
that suffocation or the fear of it
begot a courage born
of desperation.
No one compared it
to the fate of being locked
in darkness in a stalled elevator
underground.
Like someone buried
upright and alive, anyone
trapped there would stop at nothing.

from We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon. Ed. Kamal Boullata. Northampton, MA: Interlink Pub Group Inc (March 30, 2007).
Samuel Hazo was born in Pittsburgh, July 19, 1928. The son of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, Hazo tackles themes of faith, family, and war in his poems, which are often elegiac in tone. Poet Naomi Shihab Nye noted Hazo’s poems of “immense intelligence, lyricism, and humanity” on awarding his book Just Once: New and Previous Poems (2002) the Maurice English Award for Poetry.
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