Tag: Gush Etzion

“. . . . The Holy Land seemingly chooses bullets . . .” (Farrah Sarafa)

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Police and some 1,200 protesters clash during a rally against the government’s plan to resettle some 30,000 Bedouin residents of the Negev, in the southern Israeli town of Hura, earlier this month (Photo credit: David Buimovitch/Flash90)

❶ Palestinian woman shot dead after alleged car attack at Gush Etzion
❷ Israeli forces open fire on Palestinians near Gaza border
❸ PHOTOS: Arabs and Jews protest planned expulsion of 1,200 Bedouin
❹ BDS win: UNICEF in Jordan ends G4S contract
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THE RIGHT TO OWN PROPERTY — FOR JEWS ALONE
❻ Poetry by Farrah Sarafa
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  SHOT  DEAD  AFTER  ALLEGED  CAR  ATTACK  AT  GUSH  ETZION
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
4 Mar. 2016
Israeli forces shot dead a 34-year-old Palestinian woman on Friday morning after she allegedly rammed her car into an Israeli soldier stationed at the Gush Etzion junction in the southern occupied West Bank.
___An Israeli army spokesperson said that after the woman hit the soldier with her car, Israeli forces “responded to the imminent threat” by shooting and killing her.     MORE . . .
❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  OPEN  FIRE  ON  PALESTINIANS  NEAR  GAZA  BORDER
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
4 Mar. 2016
Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian workers east of Gaza City on Friday morning, with no injuries reported, locals told Ma’an.
___Heavy gunfire was heard as Israeli soldiers stationed in military towers along the Gazan border opened fire on workers and bird hunters.
___Witnesses told Ma’an that the Palestinians left the area fearing for their safety. Medical sources said that no injuries were reported.      MORE . . .

bedouin children
Bedouin children take part in a demonstration outside the Be’er Sheva District Court against the planned demolition of Umm al-Hiran and Atir, two unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel’s Negev Desert, March 3, 2016. (Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

❸ PHOTOS:  ARABS  AND  JEWS  PROTEST  PLANNED  EXPULSION  OF  1,200  BEDOUIN
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Yael Marom, photos by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org
3 Mar. 2016
Over 300 demonstrators marched outside the Be’er Sheva District Court Thursday against the planned demolition of two unrecognized Bedouin villages, Umm al-Hiran and Atir, in Israel’s Negev Desert. Two villages are slated to be replaced by a Jewish-only community and a Jewish National Fund forest, respectively
___The protesters, Arabs and Jews, accompanied by members of Knesset from the Joint List and Meretz’s Issawi Freij, chanted “We will not move from Atir and Umm al-Hiran,” and “the Negev belongs to all of us — Jews and Arabs.”      MORE . . .
❹ BDS  WIN:  UNICEF  IN  JORDAN  ENDS  G4S  CONTRACT
PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Jordan has ended its contract with G4S following a campaign by BDS activists in the country and across the world over the company’s role in Israel’s detention and torture of Palestinian political prisoners and other Israeli human rights violations.
___Guman Mussa, the Arab World campaigns coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, welcomed the move.  MORE . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THE  RIGHT  TO  OWN  PROPERTY  — FOR  JEWS  ALONE
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From YESH DIN, by Yossi Gurvitz
4 Mar. 2016
The government never authorized the wholesale annexation of the West Bank. That’s why it’s doing it behind everyone’s backs. . . .
[. . . . ]
The Israeli government never authorized . . . unofficial policy of annexation – one that does not grant equal rights to those being annexed, while at the same time depriving them of the legal defenses they are entitled to as protected persons, since, allegedly, there is no occupation.      MORE . . . 

“LET  THE  LAND  CHOOSE,”  BY  FARRAH  SARAFA

Who do you think the Holy Land
Would choose: Palestine or Israel?

Do you expect the birthplace of 3
Religions to ever really be peaceful?

I mean—Jesus was a saint,
Tortured and crucified by men with gold.

Do we celebrate Pilot’s cursed victory
Or the sacrifices made by a saint,

A hero, who rises from the dead?
His Resurrection marked by Easter eggs,

Reproduction. Do miracles
Require modernity or tradition

To appear? Chemicals or nature?
Mind or heart? Bulldozing olive trees,

Whose oil sustained families, diet
And economy, Israel is yet to produce

A decent olive oil. Its blood somehow
Curdles with the juice of branches needed

To extract an extra virgin olive.
The Holy Land seemingly chooses bullets,

Nightclubs, Capitalism, Snobbery-
(Ignorance is bliss)—but the roots

The veins reaching into mountains’
Throats seem to not be cooperating.

Why is that? Ask Jesus, the rebel,
Who’d say: First get to love Palestine.

About Farrah Sarafa
In 2006 she wrote: “My mother was born in Palestine, my father in Iraq; they married in Egypt twenty five years ago and had me here in the States. I am a pure, product of occupation and war, therefore, confused by my American upbringing. The war has been eating me up more than ever and poetry is my primary response. . .”
From Warpoetry.co.uk
 BDS FINAL LOGO_v5WEB_URL_side

“. . .Make hummus not walls. . .”

Harold Knight1 Comment
Bethlehem 3155
From the Bethlehem Wall Museum. SEE DESCRIPTIONS AT END OF THIS POST.

❶ Palestinian teen shot dead after alleged attack near Tulkarem
❷ Army Kills a Palestinian Teen in Bethlehem
❸ 13-year old Palestinian Boy has Court Appearance; Trial will Begin in January
❹ Five Projects That Are Leading Bethlehem Into a Brighter Future
❺ Opinion/Analysis: RELIGION,  THE  SCAPEGOAT  OF  THE  ISRAEL-PALESTINE  CRISIS
❻ Personal statements by Bethlehem Young People
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

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Bethlehem Wall Museum (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 6, 2015)

❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  TEEN  SHOT  DEAD  AFTER  ALLEGED  ATTACK  NEAR  TULKAREM
Dec. 1, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli military officer shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian woman at a checkpoint east of Tulkarem on Tuesday, saying that she had attempted to stab him, Israel’s army said.
___An Israeli army spokesperson said that the officer killed the young woman at a checkpoint near the illegal settlement of Enav east of Tulkarem because she posed an “immediate danger” to him.
___The Israeli officer was not injured during the encounter. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent said that one of their emergency teams arrived on the scene shortly afterward. She confirmed that the young woman had no vital signs.
___The team was prevented from taking away her body, which was instead taken away in an Israeli army medical jeep.
More . . .
❷ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
ARMY  KILLS  A  PALESTINIAN  TEEN  IN  BETHLEHEM
Dec. 01, 201
The army claims he “attempted to stab a settler”; Israeli soldiers shot and killed, on Tuesday morning, a Palestinian teen, sixteen years of age, near the Gush Etzion settlement block, built on Palestinian lands, south of Bethlehem.
___Palestinian medical sources said the slain teen has been identified as Ma’moun Raed al-Khatib, 16 years of age, from Doha city, in the Bethlehem district.
___According to the Israeli army, al-Khatib “approached a settler with the intention to stab him,” before a soldier shot and injured him.
___The slain Palestinian was left bleeding on the ground, and died of his wounds.
___Israeli sources said the army also accidentally shot and injured one settler in his arm, suffering a mild wound, and that no Israelis were hurt in the reported “stabbing attack.”
More . . .

First Dream 3153
Bethlehem Wall Museum (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 6, 2015)

❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
13-YEAR  OLD  PALESTINIAN  BOY  HAS  COURT  APPEARANCE;  TRIAL  WILL  BEGIN  IN  JANUARY
Nov. 30, 2015
A 13-year old Palestinian boy accused of stabbing and wounding a 13-year old Israeli boy had a court appearance Thursday. On October 11th, Ahmad Manasra was run over by a car and beaten nearly to death by a group of Israelis, then subjected to brutal interrogation with no lawyer or parent present.
___Ahmad Manasra’s lawyer presented evidence contradicting the Israeli government’s claims that the boy stabbed an Israeli.
[. . . . .]
___A video of Ahmad lying injured and bloody on the ground after being hit by the car was uploaded to social media and went viral. In the footage, a settler onlooker can clearly be heard saying: “Die, you son of a whore! Die!”, while another tells the police officer to shoot the boy until he dies.
More . . .
❹ THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
FIVE  PROJECTS  THAT  ARE  LEADING  BETHLEHEM  INTO  A  BRIGHTER  FUTURE
Natalie Morcos
Dec. 1, 2015
The municipality of Bethlehem is an institution with a great history, one of the oldest in Palestine. It has conducted projects on various scales over time, starting under the Ottoman Occupation, to the British Mandate, Jordanian Rule, and then the Israeli Occupation. The municipality has been and remains steadfast in its dedication to the development of Bethlehem by aiming to preserve its rich heritage of more than two thousand years and its outstanding historical value as the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Its constant vision toward the city is to raise the level of wellbeing of the citizens through infrastructural, educational, cultural, and environmental interventions. The municipality has an ongoing cycle of projects that aspire to improve different sectors such as the road network, public buildings, historical architecture, and more.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEMO)
RELIGION,  THE  SCAPEGOAT  OF  THE  ISRAEL-PALESTINE  CRISIS
Megan Hanna
Nov. 30, 2015
The sirens had barely stopped wailing before commentators started exploiting the terror attacks in Paris on 13 November, twisting the horrific event to serve a range of varying political agendas. . . .
___Given his tendency for making tenuous connections between Israel’s plight and disparate foreign events, it’s no surprise that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was one of the first to climb up on France’s bloodied bandwagon to make hasty links between Paris and present-day Israel. . . .
claiming “the terrorists who attack us have the same murderous intent as those in Paris”, saying that world leaders should condemn the “radical Islam” as effected by Palestinians.
[. . . . ]
___To compare the actions of ISIS with those of dispossessed Palestinians – who are resisting in an anti-colonial struggle against a brutal military occupation – is intentionally deceptive . . . .
More . . . 

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Bethlehem Wall Museum (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 6, 2015)

STORIES FROM THE WALL MUSEUM 

All photographs are from the  WALL  MUSEUM  in Bethlehem, a section of the Apartheid Wall on which are posted statements by Palestinians about their personal experiences living under the Occupation. The display is a project  AEI-OPEN  WINDOWS,  an Arab-Palestinian NGO affiliated with Pax Christi International and established in Bethlehem in 1986 by a group of Palestinian educators. These photos are by Harold Knight, Nov. 6, 2015. The title of this post comes from the graffiti on the Wall.

FADED  DREAMS
I just finished my university and I have my degree to become a doctor. But that was not what I wanted to become in life. I wanted to become an artist and inspire people and tell the story of Palestine. But my parents didn’t see any future in that and I was forced to study medicine. Now I have my degree but there’s no work. I have lots of time now because I can’t find work. I decided to pick up my faded dream and work on my art. Finally I’m an artist.
BY  HANNA,  FROM  BETHLEHEM

FIRST  DREAM. . .  AND  THEN  THE  REST
Ruaa always dreamed of a world filled with love and compassion. She loved studying. Her father’s retirement payments got delayed. Her mother was determined to help her to stay in school and started selling fruits and herbs to help Ruaa pay for school. One day, Ruaa was wearing a slightly different uniform, so the principal told her she will be expelled if it happens again. When she arrived home, she saw her parents in the cold collecting plants to sell, and all she could do was cry. Ruaa promised herself to study and repay her parents for all the hardships they have gone through. She attended university and she is about to graduate now. She still dreams of the demise of the occupation, and to live in a beautiful world filled with love and tolerance. Since her first dream came true, she believes the rest can and will.
BY  LEYLA,  A  FRIEND  OF  RUAA,  FROM  AL-KHADER

GIVING  UP  ON  MY  FIRST  DREAMS
I finished last year of high school (tawjih) with a grade of 94 out of 100. At the time I aspired to study law to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, especially women’s rights. However, my parents didn’t let me study law. So, I decided I wanted to study nursing, but again my parents rejected the idea because of the work shifts I would sometimes be required to do, as they do not feel that it is appropriate for a woman to work at night. Finally I got frustrated and I gave up on my dreams. In the end, I studied social education because it is very disciplined, which is fitting for girls as it prepares students to be a teacher, and I like it. I believe I will be a successful teacher.
BY  RANEEN,  FROM  BETHLEHEM

AEI-OPEN WINDOWS Contact information:
info@aeicenter.org – tel-02-2744030

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The Apartheid Wall, Bethlehem (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 6, 2015)

“. . . Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow . . .” (Nizar Qabbani)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Jewish anti-occupation activists hand out flyers to delegates at the World Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, October 20, 2015. (Photo: Laura Gottesdiener). See number ❸ below.
Jewish anti-occupation activists hand out flyers to delegates at the World Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, October 20, 2015. (Photo: Laura Gottesdiener). See number ❸ below.

❶ Jerusalem family demolishes own home following Israeli order
❷ Settler shoots, critically injures Palestinian near Gush Etzion
❸ Diaspora Jews bring occupation to World Zionist Congress
❹ Settlers Set Car Ablaze, Spray Paint Racist Graffiti in Jerusalem
❺ Opinion/Analysis: It’s in times of violence we need most to talk about peace
❻ Poetry by Nizar Qabbani
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
JERUSALEM  FAMILY  DEMOLISHES  OWN  HOME  FOLLOWING  ISRAELI  ORDER
Oct. 24, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian family in occupied East Jerusalem demolished its own home on Saturday in order to avoid the Israeli municipality’s demolition.
____The house, which totaled 100 square meters, was built in 1998 in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and had been housing Abeer al-Rajabi, her husband, and six children, aged six to 18 years old.
____Abeer’s father, Elias, told Ma’an that the Israeli authorities had delivered several demolition orders in recent years, with the final order issued in April.
____The order gave the family until Oct. 24 to execute the demolition, after which point they would be charged 60,000 shekels ($15,430) in demolition expenses.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
SETTLER  SHOOTS,  CRITICALLY  INJURES  PALESTINIAN  NEAR  GUSH  ETZION
Oct. 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli settler shot and seriously injured a young Palestinian man on Sunday morning in the Wadi Sair area near the illegal Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, southeast of Bethlehem, Palestinian security sources said.
____The settler claimed, according to Israeli reports, that a Palestinian attacked him with a knife.
____Palestinian security sources told Ma’an that an Israeli settler shot 20-year-old Azzam Azmi Shalalda four times while he was in his agricultural field, after the actual person suspected of carrying out the alleged attack had reportedly already fled the scene.
____After the shooting, Shalalda was evacuated to al-Mamoon clinic in Sair for first aid, before he was taken to al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron. Medics say he is in a critical condition.
More . . .
Related . . . WITNESSES:  ISRAELI  POLICE  SHOOT,  KILL  PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  IN  HEBRON
❸ +972 MAGAZINE
DIASPORA  JEWS  BRING  OCCUPATION  TO WORLD  ZIONIST  CONGRESS
Edo Konrad
While Netanyahu was busy blaming a Palestinian for the Holocaust, a group of Jewish activists asked the World Zionist Congress what it was planning to do to end the occupation.
Oct. 24, 2015
Hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines for telling the World Zionist Congress that a Palestinian inspired Hitler to exterminate the Jews, a group of Jews from around the world came to that very same congress to remind delegates of the conditions in which Palestinians live [. . . . .].
____ . . . One side of the flyers included a quote from historic Zionist leader and promoter of Jewish-Palestinian bi-nationalism, Martin Buber, from World Zionist Congress in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia in 1921, where he implored the congress, and the Jewish people at large, to “reject with abhorrence the methods of nationalistic domination, under which they themselves have so long suffered.”
More . . .
❹ PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
SETTLERS  SET  CAR  ABLAZE,  SPRAY  PAINT  RACIST  GRAFFITI  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 25, 2015 (WAFA) – Extremist Jewish settlers from the so-called ‘price tag’ group at dawn Sunday set a Palestinian-owned car on fire and spray painted racists graffiti on walls in Um Tuba, a village just southeast of Jerusalem, according to local sources.
____According to witnesses, settlers from the ‘price tag’ group set a car ablaze and painted racist slogans that call for the killing of Palestinians, in addition to the Jewish Star of David. The car belongs to local Nayef Abu Tair.
____The group has conducted similar attacks in Jerusalem and across the West Bank in recent years.
____Violence by illegal Jewish settlers is commonplace. They have repeatedly attacked Palestinian property and worship places. Settler violence includes property and mosques’ arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, and attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
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IT’S  IN  TIMES  OF  VIOLENCE  WE  NEED  MOST  TO  TALK  ABOUT  PEACE
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
Oct. 22, 2015
Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will never make peace. They will never succeed at stopping the violence, and they will never see eye to eye on anything other than the incompatibility of their respective visions.
____Don’t get me wrong: both men want peace. Even Benjamin Netanyahu . . . . is a master politician whose worldview dictates that the Jewish people will never be safe and that Muslims in general, but Palestinians in particular, are the greatest threat to it.
____That world view is the driving force behind the only two issues in which Netanyahu has ever fully invested himself in his political career: preventing Iranian nuclear proliferation, and ensuring that Israel does not give up strategic military control of the West Bank and Gaza. It’s not that he wants to rule over the Palestinians, it’s just that they happen to live on the land over which he will never agree to cede control.
____There will never be a Palestinian leader who agrees to Netanyahu’s terms for peace
More . . .

“JERUSALEM,” BY NIZAR QABBANI

I wept until my tears were dry
I prayed until the candles flickered
I knelt until the floor creaked
I asked about Mohammed and Christ
Oh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophets
The shortest path between earth and sky
Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws
A beautiful child with fingers charred
and downcast eyes
You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet
Your streets are melancholy
Your minarets are mourning
You, the young maiden dressed in black
Who rings the bells in the Nativity
On Saturday morning?
Who brings toys for the children
On Christmas eve?
Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow
A big tear wandering in the eye
Who will halt the aggression
On you, the pearl of religions?
Who will wash your bloody walls?
Who will safeguard the Bible?
Who will rescue the Quran?
Who will save Christ?
Who will save man?
Oh Jerusalem my town
Oh Jerusalem my love
Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom
And the olive trees will rejoice
Your eyes will dance
The migrant pigeons will return
To your sacred roofs
And your children will play again
And fathers and sons will meet
On your rosy hills
My town
The town of peace and olives.

“Jerusalem, Poem by Nizar Qabbani.” Poemhunter.com. Web. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jerusalem-12/
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) was a Syrian diplomat and poet revered by Arabs for his sensual and romantic verse. A man of his times and of all times, he is by far the most popular contemporary poet in the Arab world.

An 18-month-old boy and his parents were killed in a night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma.The Hebrew word for "revenge" and a Star of David were found sprayed on the wall of one of the gutted houses. July 31, 2015. (Photo: BBC News). See number ❹ above.
An 18-month-old boy and his parents were killed in a night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma.The Hebrew word for “revenge” and a Star of David were found sprayed on the wall of one of the gutted houses. July 31, 2015. (Photo: BBC News). See number ❹ above.

“. . .accept these rinses, they are tedious / they will come again. . .” (Naomi Shihab Nye)

Harold Knight2 Comments
Rizka Abu Rujeila, 70 years old, holds her grandson outside the hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 24 July.
Rizka Abu Rujeila, 70 years old, holds her grandson outside the hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 24 July.

❶ From THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
GAZA’S GRANDPARENTS ENDURE ONE TRAUMA AFTER ANOTHER
Anne Paq
June 4, 2015
Most of Gaza’s population is very young: the median age is 18, and nearly 45 percent of the Strip’s 1.8 million residents are 14 years old or younger.
____Attention was rightly paid to the plight of Gaza’s children during Israel’s 51 days of bombing last summer. But elderly Palestinians are also among the population’s most vulnerable, and have been subjected to repeated trauma during their lifetime.
____The eldest among them survived the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, when they were forced from their homes and into refugee camps. The Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) was followed by Israeli invasions and massacres in the 1950s, military conquest and occupation in 1967, the imposition of settlement colonies, two popular uprisings and their subsequent crackdowns. And, most recently, nearly a decade of siege and closure and three major military offensives in the span of six years.
____Gaza’s elderly have been subjected to destruction of homes and businesses — the destruction of a life’s work. In some cases they have had to become caretakers again, taking in grandchildren orphaned by Israeli violence and playing a crucial role in keeping families together following profound loss.
(More. . .)

❷ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL CLOSES GAZA BORDER CROSSINGS FOR ‘SECURITY REASONS’
June 7, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) –The Israeli authorities closed the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings into Gaza on Sunday morning citing “security reasons.”
____Only a limited supply of humanitarian aid and medical cases will be allowed to cross through, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
____The closure came shortly after Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas military targets in the coastal enclave, following a rocket attack on Saturday night that a Salafist group claimed responsibility for. No injuries were reported on either side.
(More. . .)

❸ From HA’ARETZ
LET THE PEOPLE OF GAZA GO
Haaretz Editorial
May 28, 2015
Some 15,000 people who have asked to leave the Gaza Strip are still trapped there since last summer’s war. These people are imprisoned in the Strip without being able to return to their work or family abroad. Thousands of them need medical treatment and more than 1,000 others are students who couldn’t leave for their studies overseas and stand to lose their visas and scholarships and miss a year’s studies (as reported by Jack Khoury on Wednesday). . .
____“We feel like cattle in a pen. But even cattle are allowed sometimes to go out into an open space. In Gaza we’re forbidden to do so and we don’t even know why,” Mayasem Abu-Mer, a 25-year-old Gazan resident, said Tuesday. Abu-Mer was denied passage through the Erez checkpoint to the West Bank and from there to the Allenby checkpoint.
(More. . .)

❹ From IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
SOLDIERS KIDNAP A PALESTINIAN FROM BEIT UMMAR
IMEMC & Agencies
June 06, 2015
Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Saturday morning, a young Palestinian man from Beit Ummar town, north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, after stopping him on the Tunnel Roadblock; soldiers also handed a resident of Hebron a military order for interrogation, and installed roadblocks.
____ In addition, soldiers invaded Hebron city, searched and ransacked several homes, and handed Samer Yosri a military order for interrogation in the Gush Etzion base.
(More. . .)

A demolished Palestinian home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, march 14, 2009
A demolished Palestinian home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, march 14, 2009

❺ From MONDOWEISS
TWO PALESTINIAN FAMILIES ARE BRUTALLY ATTACKED IN JERUSALEM AS THEIR HOMES ARE TAKEN FROM THEM
Kate
June 6, 2015
Video: Israeli forces attack Palestinian elder while demolishing Jerusalem homes
Electronic Intifada 3 June by Charlotte Silver — This video shows Israeli occupation police and border guards brutally attacking members of the family of Nidal Abu Khalid early Tuesday morning, as they arrived to demolish two homes in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
(More. . .)

“THE CLEAN RINSE,” BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Each time you go through this
you lose a little less color

the water is less
pink, blue, or gray

this is what i try to say:
don’t let them wring it out of you

because they like starch,
don’t let that apply to your neck

you are real, 100% cotton
you can wrinkle, accept that as gift

and accept these rinses,
they are tedious

they will come
again and again

after awhile, you will have
nothing more they can take

From Nye, Naomi Shihab. 19 Varieties of Gazelle. New York: GREENWILLOW/Harper (2005).
Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University.
(More. . .)

The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip (photo credit: Tsafrir Abayov)
The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip (photo credit: Tsafrir Abayov)