Tag: Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

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

Harold KnightLeave a comment
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Israeli Soldier surveils children leaving al-Minya School, Nov. 16, 2015. (Photo EAPPI/Suvi. R)

❶ Israeli forces and settlers surround Palestinian school, detain student, 2 teachers
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces assault, detain 2 children on their way home from school

  • BACKGROUND:   Military Court Watch (monitoring the treatment of children in detention)      Briefing Note – May 2017

❷ ARIJ Daily Report: Israeli Violations’ Activities in the oPt   Thu, 25th 05 2017
❸ Israeli forces detain two minors near Jenin
❹ Poetry by Maya Abu Al-Hayyar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  AND  SETTLERS  SURROUND  PALESTINIAN  SCHOOL,  DETAIN   STUDENT,  2  TEACHERS
Ma’an News Agency      
May 25, 2017
Israeli settlers escorted by military forces surrounded a Palestinian school in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem on Thursday morning, detaining a student and two teachers while leaving others trapped inside the school.
___Sharif al-Froukh, the deputy headmaster of the al-Minya middle and high school in the village of Tuqu, said an Israeli settler chased students who were on their way to the school for their end-of-year exams, claiming that they had thrown rocks at him.  (See endnote with photo below.)  
___Al-Froukh added that Israeli forces had detained a fifth grader identified as Mahdi al-Kawazba, and two teachers, identified as Muhammad al-Qurneh and Khalid al-Araysi.
___Al-Froukh said that two Israeli settlers’ vehicles and five military jeeps were surrounding the school, and that some teachers were staying at the entrance to prevent the Israelis from raiding the school, while other teachers and staff remained with students inside classrooms.       MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  FORCES  ASSAULT,  DETAIN  2  CHILDREN  ON  THEIR  WAY  HOME  FROM  SCHOOL
Ma’an News Agency        
May 24, 2017
At least two Palestinian children were beaten and detained by Israeli forces on Wednesday morning inside the Aida refugee camp, located in the northern part of Bethlehem city in the southern occupied West Bank.
___Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided the camp in military jeeps at around 9:30 a.m. while students from the camp’s United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school were returning home from their final exams.
___The soldiers then got out of their jeeps near the camp’s cemetery and assaulted two students, whose identities remained unknown. After beating the two, the soldiers threw them into the jeep and took them into a military base located adjacent to the camp.      ___“After arresting the two kids, the soldiers lined up a group of students against the wall and began pointing their guns in the kids’ faces,” one witness, who recorded the incident on video, told Ma’an.        MORE . . . .

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”.
___UNICEF report: 4 years on – March 2017 marked the fourth anniversary since the publication of the UNICEF report: Children in Israeli Military Detention. . . .   During the intervening 4 years there have been a number of legal and procedural changes to the system but reports of ill-treatment and denial of legal rights remain largely constant at 2013 levels.         NOTE WITH LINK TO FULL REPORT . . . .

❷ ARIJ  DAILY  REPORT  THU,  25TH  05  2017. Israeli  Violations  Activities  in  the  oPt 
The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ)  
May 25, 2017
The daily report highlights the violations behind Israeli home demolitions and demolition threats in the occupied Palestinian territory, the confiscation and razing of lands, the uprooting and destruction of fruit trees, the expansion of settlements and erection of outposts, the brutality of the Israeli Occupation Army, the Israeli settlers violence against Palestinian civilians and properties, the erection of checkpoints, the construction of the Israeli segregation wall and the issuance of military orders for the various Israeli purposes.       THE REPORT . . . .
❸ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  TWO  MINORS  NEAR  JENIN     
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA   
May 24, 2017
Israeli forces Wednesday detained two Palestinian minors near the Israeli Salem military camp to the west of Jenin, said local sources.     Sources told WAFA Israeli army detained two minors aged 16 and 17, from Jenin refugee camp, while they near the Israeli Salem military camp.     This brings the total number of Palestinians detained on Wednesday to 10.        MORE . . .   

‘CHILDREN,”  BY  MAYA  ABU  AL-HAYYAR

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
Block out the sparks of the eyes that cry everywhere
—Translated by Graham Fulton

Maya Abu Al-Hayyar 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 and lives in Ramallah.
From A  BIRD  IS  NOT  A  STONE:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CONTEMPORARY  PALESTINIAN  POETRY. Ed. by Henry Bell and Sarah Irving. (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Amazon.

note
(Photo: EAPPI, Dec. 3, 2014) World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

EAPPI: Note from the Israeli army explaining why they raided Tuqu’ village the night before:    “Recently, many terror attacks** took place towards Israeli residents by youth from your village. In response, our forces carried out an operation in the village and your houses in order to prevent the increase of harm to the security of the residents. The aim of this military operation in the area is to reduce the amount of violent attacks and the disruption of order against those that travel and live in this area. Therefore, the aim of this activity is not to disrupt your routine. Make the terrorists go away. Only with cooperation will we can achieve peace in the area.”
**The minors detained the night before were detained for throwing stones.  The throwing of stones are the “terror attacks” and those who throw them are the “terrorists” that this note refers to.

“. . . 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

 

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

Harold KnightLeave a comment
bypass
Bypass road in the greater Bethlehem area; a clear physical manifestation of a spatial segregative system existing within the West Bank. (Photo: probablenotes, April 22, 2012)

❶ B’Tselem: Israel demolished more Palestinian homes in past 6 months than in all of 2015

  • Background from Postcolonial Studies

❷ A new Israeli bypass road cater to the benefit of El Matan outpost

  • Background from Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture

❸ Opinion/Analysis:  JERUSALEM MUNICIPALITY ‘TAKING ADVANTAGE’ OF US ELECTIONS TO EXPAND SETTLEMENTS
❺ POETRY by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ B’TSELEM: ISRAEL DEMOLISHED MORE PALESTINIAN HOMES IN PAST 6 MONTHS THAN IN ALL OF 2015
Ma’an News Agency
July 27, 2016
Israeli authorities have demolished more Palestinian homes in the West Bank in the first six months of 2016 as they did in all of 2015, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem revealed in a report released on Wednesday, in a worrying confirmation of Israel’s ongoing crackdown on Palestinian communities in Area C of the West Bank.
___The report, which was also presented by the Arab Joint List during a Knesset conference on Israel’s home demolition policy the same day, said that 168 homes were destroyed during the first half of 2016 for lacking hard to obtain Israeli-issued building permits, leaving 740 Palestinians homeless.
___B’Tselem’s report did not include punitive demolitions enacted on the home of suspected Palestinian attackers and their families.       MORE . . .

From Postcolonial Studies
With the wall, this policy [Apartheid] became obvious and clear. Before there were laws, how they dealt with you differently, even in your daily life. But when they started building the wall and these checkpoints, the analogy became more obvious. . .  [the Wall] is here. You can see it on a map, you see it on the ground, and you see the checkpoints. So now, talking about apartheid became much more open, especially to the international community after 2002. It has become totally accepted to the world . . . . everybody is talking about apartheid because this is something that is so clear. What they are doing here and inside Israel, destroying Palestinian homes through thousands of house demolitions, more than 76,000 people have had their homes threatened in Jerusalem—all of this fits into this analogy [of Apartheid].

  • Lee, Christopher J. “Beyond Analogy: Bare Life In The West Bank.” Postcolonial Studies 16.4 (2013): 374-387.  SOURCE.

❷ A NEW ISRAELI BYPASS ROAD CATER TO THE BENEFIT OF EL MATAN OUTPOST
POICA – Monitoring Israeli Colonization Activities in the Palestinian Territories
July 28, 2016
Since 1967, the successive Israeli Governments have actively supported Israeli settlers to build settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian territory . . .  it has been a form of expanding Israel’s control of land and natural resources with the purpose of creating irreversible facts on the ground that will become hard to change in the future.
___El Matan, a tiny but strategic Israeli outpost in the heart of Wadi Qana area, in Salfit Governorate. It is one example of the Israeli encroachment on Palestinian land. In June 2002, a group of religious Israeli settlers from the nearby settlements of the so-called Shomron local council occupied a hilltop south of Ma’ale Shomron . . .
___Recently, Israeli Authorities commenced the construction of a new bypass road that connects the outpost (El Matan) with the nearby Ma’ale Shomron settlement. Extensive construction is underway in the outpost and is being implemented based on a previously approved master plan (TPS) No. 116/5.  MORE . . .    

From Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture
Behind the policy of denying the Palestinians permits to build or to expand their homes is an even greater motivation; to protect the interests and stability of the Jewish state.’ ___While this approach has existed since the establishment of the state of Israel, a policy decision related to Jerusalem was officially made in 1973 by a ministerial committee known as the Gafni Commission. At the core of the policy was the concern that the Jewish character of Jerusalem would be jeopardized if the Palestinian population kept increasing at its current rate. In 1977, the Planning Policy Division prepared a paper stating: “One of the cornerstones of Jerusalem’s planning process is […] the preservation of the demographic balance between the ethnic groups [in accordance with] the resolution of the Government of Israel.” Therefore, as a result of this growing “threat,” Israel has used a number of methods to keep the demographic balance between the Jewish and the Palestinian populations at a fixed ratio of 70% Jews to 30% Palestinians.'”

  • Dimova, Nicoletta. “When Ideology Leads to Destruction: Home Demolitions in East Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture Sept. 2008: 92+.  SOURCE.
settlement
A section of the Wall is seen close to a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem. (Photo: REUTERS)

❸ Opinion/Analysis: JERUSALEM MUNICIPALITY ‘TAKING ADVANTAGE’ OF US ELECTIONS TO EXPAND SETTLEMENT
Mondoweiss
Annie Robbins
July 27, 2016
Never let a serious crisis go to waste. This is the first thought that crossed my mind when I read Israel National News headline: ‘We’re taking advantage of the US elections to build’ . . . .
___Israel will use every opportunity to expand the breadth of their illegal colonies on Palestinian land, and the US election season is no exception. Jerusalem Online picked up the story too reporting “Jerusalem construction accelerated due to US elections“. The articles claim officials from the Jerusalem Municipality told Channel 2 News that plans to build 57 new housing units over the green line in the occupied East Jerusalem colony of Ramot had been fast-tracked because of U.S. election season and “the accelerated process is not a coincidence.”     MORE . . .

“CHILDREN,” BY MAYA ABU AL-HAYYAT
Whenever I see an image of a child’s hands
sticking out of the rubble of a collapsed building
I check the hands of my three children
I count the fingers of their hands, the toes on their feet,
I check the numbers of teeth in their mouths, every
last hair in each finely-marked wee eyebrow.

Whenever a child goes silent in Al Yarmouk Camp
I turn up the volume on the TV, the songs on the radio,
I pinch my three children
to make them cry and squirm with life.

Whenever my sore heart gets hungry at Qalandia checkpoint
I comfort-eat, I
emotionally over-eat, craving excessive salt
as if I could then somehow say: enough, block out
the salt spark of the tears everyone around me is crying.
―Translated by Liz Lochhead

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
About Qalandia checkpoint

 

“. . . Whenever a child goes silent in Al Yarmouk Camp. . .” (Maya Abu Al-Hayyat)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PLO: PALESTINIAN REFUGEES IN SYRIA FACE IMMINENT THREAT FROM FIGHTING
June 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Some 150,000 Palestinian refugees in four camps on the outskirts of Damascus face severe threats due to ongoing fighting in the Syrian conflict, a PLO official said Thursday. . . .
____The majority of Palestinians in those camps are originally from Yarmouk refugee camp, which has been on the front-line of the Syrian conflict and severely affected by fighting.
(More. . .)

❷ From ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
US CONGRESS MEMBERS DEMAND END TO ISRAEL’S “CRUEL” ABUSES OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Ali Abunimah
June 24, 2015
In rare defiance of the stifling pro-Israel consensus in the US capital, members of Congress are calling on the Obama administration to push Israel to end its systematic abuses of Palestinian children.
____Congresswoman Betty McCollum released a letter on Tuesday co-signed by 18 other members of the House of Representatives urging Secretary of State John Kerry to “prioritize the human rights of Palestinian children living in the Occupied West Bank in the bilateral relationship with the Government of Israel.”
(More. . .)

❸ From KINDERUSA
THE INHUMANITY OF YARMOUK
Dalell Mohmed
April 15, 2015
“Yarmouk is a place which has descended even further into unimaginable levels of inhumanity.”– United Nations Relief Works Agency spokesperson Chris Gunness
____Formed in 1957 for Palestinians who fled across the border after the creation of Israel in 1948, Yarmouk quickly became home to the largest Palestinian refugee community in Syria. Located 8 kilometers from the center of Damascus, it is 2.1 square kilometers in size.
(More. . .)

Palestinian residents of Yarmouk waiting for food
Palestinian residents of Yarmouk waiting for food

❹ From INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
UNRWA LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO FUND GAZA CHILDREN EDUCATION
June 25, 2015
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) launched a global Ramadan campaign to raise funds to support the education of thousands of Palestinian refugee children in UNRWA schools in the besieged Gaza Strip.
(More. . .)

❺ From MONDOWEISS
WHAT I LEARNED CROSSING THE QALANDIA CHECKPOINT
Léa Georgeson Caparros
June 23, 2015
The turnstile jams.
____It rattles uselessly as I try to move forward again. I start getting nervous. I manage to manoeuvre out of the gate and back into the holding cage. My companions are still being held at the previous turnstile from which I’m separated by a metal detector. I dare not go back for fear of breaking some unspoken rule.
____There is no indication anywhere of what to do other than your lack of alternatives. You are simply herded through cages and turnstiles like cattle. . . .
(More. . .)

“CHILDREN,” BY MAYA ABU AL-HAYYAT
Whenever I see an image of a child’s hands
sticking out of the rubble of a collapsed building
I check the hands of my three children
I count the fingers of their hands, the toes on their feet,
I check the numbers of teeth in their mouths, every
last hair in each finely-marked wee eyebrow.

Whenever a child goes silent in Al Yarmouk Camp
I turn up the volume on the TV, the songs on the radio,
I pinch my three children
to make them cry and squirm with life.

Whenever my sore heart gets hungry at Qalandia checkpoint
I comfort-eat, I
emotionally over-eat, craving excessive salt
as if I could then somehow say: enough, block out
the salt spark of the tears everyone around me is crying.
―Translated by Liz Lochhead

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
About Qalandia checkpoint

Children at play in Gaza
Children at play in Gaza