Tag: Right of Return

“. . . Our roots are entrenched / Deep in the earth . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

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IMG_3349 - CopySt. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Beit Jala in Bethlehem Governate.
Priest greets parishioner after service.
Photo: Harold Knight, Sun. Nov. 8, 2015.

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

|   MYTHS  AND  FANTASIES  ABOUT  THE  PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  AND  THE  UNITED  NATIONS     Andrew Whitley, former senior UNRWA official      The decision of the Trump Administration to halt all funding for UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for 5.4 million Palestinian refugees, and its attempts to redefine who qualifies as a “refugee” in this context, marks another egregious example of Washington’s disregard for international norms and humanitarian law in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.    ___The ultimate fate of those refugees who fled their homes or were forcibly expelled in the war that led to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 – and of their descendants, now into third and fourth generations – has long been one of the most contentious issues in the conflict.    ___The “right to return” is seen by Palestinians and their supporters worldwide as a matter of natural and historic justice. After all, this is exactly the same right as all other refugees – for whom UNRWA’s sister agency, UNHCR, is their guardian – enjoy.    More . . .
|   MAYOR  OF  BETHLEHEM:  NETANYAHU’S  STATEMENT  ON  BETHLEHEM  AND  PALESTINIAN  CHRISTIANS  IS  ANOTHER  ISRAELI  ATTEMPT  AT  DISTORTING  REALITY  OF  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION     Mayor of Bethlehem, advocate Anton Salman said in response to Sunday’s statements by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Bethlehem and the situation of Palestinian Christians, that such statement ‘is another Israeli attempt at distorting the reality of the Israeli occupation and particularly the effects that Israeli policies have had on the Palestinian Christian community since 1948’.    ___“If Mr. Netanyahu was concerned about the situation of Palestinian Christians, particularly in the Bethlehem area, he would return the 22,000 dunums of Bethlehem land illegally annexed to Israel for expansion of colonial settlements. He would dismantle the annexation wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem for the first time in 2000 years of Christianity and would stop imposing restrictions to Palestinian movement, including the thousand of Palestinian Christians living in exile and whose return is impossible due to the Israeli control over the Palestinian population registry,” said the mayor in a statement issued by the Bethlehem municipality.    More . . .
. . . . Related  New  Israeli  Laws  Enhance  Creeping  Annexation  Policy
|   ISRAEL  CONTINUES  AIRSTRIKES  OVER  GAZA    An Israeli warplane carried out an airstrike, on Tuesday, targeting a group of Palestinians east of Beit Hanoun in the southern besieged Gaza Strip.    ___A Ma’an reporter said that an Israeli warplane fired one missile towards a group of Palestinian youths in northern Gaza; no injuries were reported.    ___The Israeli army said that a warplane targeted a group of Palestinians who were launching incendiary kites into southern Israel.    ___Meanwhile, locals reported that Israeli military bulldozers entered dozens of meters into south of Gaza City, razed and leveled lands.    More . . .
. . . . Related   Israeli  Navy,  Soldiers,  Injure  19  Palestinians  In  Northern  Gaza

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

|   WATCH:  ISRAELIS  AND  PALESTINIANS  MEET  FACE  TO  FACE  AT  GAZA  FENCE
For a few short minutes last week, a group of Israeli activists managed to have a face-to-face conversation with Palestinian activists in Gaza, albeit through a militarized fence.    ___On Wednesday of last week, for the first time since the Great Return March began in March, a small group of Israeli activists approached the fence to speak with Palestinian demonstrators, standing just meters from them on the other side.    ___The Palestinians who approached the fence had been taking part in a cultural event near the village of Khuza’a in one of the nearby tent encampments, which was established as part of the Great Return March.    ___The rare meeting lasted only a few minutes, until Israeli soldiers arrived and ordered the Israelis to leave the area.    More . . .
|   PALESTINIAN  PRISONER  IN  ISRAEL  FOR  33  YEARS  WARNED  OF  PUNISHMENT  IF  HE  PUBLISHES  BOOK     A Palestinian prisoner who served 33 years out of a 39-year prison sentence in Israeli jails for resisting the Israeli occupation was warned by the prison administration of severe punishment if he publishes a book he wrote in prison, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Tuesday.    ___It said Walid Dakka, a Palestinian from inside Israel, who previously was severely punished after publishing a book in Arabic called “The story of the secret of oil”, was told that he would be put in isolation if he goes ahead and publishes another book.    More . . .

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“WE  SHALL  REMAIN,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD  – 1970
It is a thousand times easier
For you to pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach the alligator speech, a thousand times easier
Than smothering with you oppression
The spark of an idea
Of forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind
In your eyes.

Here we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock
To quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here―we have a past
―a present
―and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.
Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain―in Lydda, in Ramlah
And Galilee.

From THE  PALESTINIAN  WEDDING:  A  BILINGUAL  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CONTEMPORARY  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE  POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.

“. . . Searching for a home between Haifa and Eternity . . .” (Ramzy Baroud)

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“. . . minors. . . were held at Ofer military camp, near Ramallah, of whom four were detained during night raids from their homes, 20 taken from the streets . . .” (Photo: Ma’an News Agency, Oct. 5, 2018)

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

|  DESPITE  HIGH  HOPES,  MERKEL  CALLS  VILLAGE’S  DEMOLITION  AN  ‘ISRAELI  DECISION’ 
Ever since Israel’s Supreme Court gave its final stamp of approval to demolish the village of Khan al-Ahmar last month, residents of the hamlet . . . have been hoping that international pressure . . . will delay or prevent the demolition. . .   [. . . .] Angela Merkel’s visit over the past two days provided some clarity regarding the possibility of German pressure on Israel on Khan al-Ahmar, and from the perspective of the villagers, things seem gloomy.     ___In a meeting held Thursday . . . [Merkel said] “This is an Israeli decision” . . .  in line with the Israeli government, which insists that foreign countries should not intervene in matters relating to the occupation.  More . . .
|  NETANYAHU  BANS  PUBLICATION  OF  ARCHIVE  MATERIAL  ON  DEIR  YASSIN  MASSACRE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to sign an order extending the secrecy of the information stored in the security services’ archives from 70 to 90 years, including the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by Zionist gangs in the Nakba.     ___This came at the request of security agencies and other bodies to extend the confidentiality of this information to prevent the publication of part of the information during the current year.      More . . .
. . . Related . . .  The  Sabra  and  Shatila  Massacre:  New  Evidence

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From PHOTO GALLERY: Deir Yassin. (Ahram Online, 2010)

|  THREE  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  CHILD,  KILLED  AT  GAZA  BORDERS 
Three Palestinians were killed and dozens of others were injured, on Friday evening, as Israeli forces suppressed protests at the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip.    ___The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed that 12-year-old Fares Hafeth al-Sarsawi was shot and killed by Israeli forces in eastern Gaza City.    More . . .
. . . Related . . .   Committee:  Israel  Detained  35  Palestinian  Minors  In  September
. . . Related . . .   Israeli  forces  shoot,  injure  13-year-old  Palestinian  in  Kafr  Qaddum 
. . . Related . . .   Five  Palestinians  injured  during  Ramallah-area  clashes

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  ARE  THE  ULTIMATE  BATTLEGROUND  FOR  THE  INTERNATIONAL  COMMUNITY
Through U.S. diplomatic sanctions and dramatic cuts of financial aid to Palestine, Palestinians are being punished because the Palestinian Authority (PA) broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S.—in response to the illegal U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and its objections to Trump’s peace prospects for the region, referred to as the “deal of the century.” This retaliatory fury has not spared Palestinian refugees or . . .  (UNRWA), the agency that has served them for seventy years.     ___In fact, cutting U.S. support for the Agency ($125 million USD) is no more than a side effect of the retaliation against the PA, UNRWA, and Palestinian refugees, the intended targets of a campaign aiming to stop calling 5.5 million Palestinians “refugees” and annihilating the entities that support them. The goal is political: helping Israel resolve . . .  one of the most intractable issues in its dealings with the Palestinians: the right to return.     More . . .
. . . Related  US  WANTS  TO  ANNUL  THE  LEGITIMATE  PALESTINIAN  RIGHT  TO  RETURN

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“NAKBA,”  BY  RAMZY  BAROUD

The bones of my ancestors are the foundation
On which the mountains of Galilee stand.

Our ruggedness might not suit your taste
But we inherited the language of trees.

I am the root of a thousand olive trees
A legacy that will grow through my children

I will fight to preserve my essence until my son
Is old enough to inherit his grandmother’s Thoub*

She lost her childhood amidst dying peasants
Before walking the beaten road of exile and hope

Pleading at every checkpoint, she was the face in her photo
Searching for a home between Haifa and Eternity.

So, don’t talk to me about the Pharaoh: My
Father’s blood drenched the skin of Jesus

After the Romans caught him at a checkpoint
Hiding a recipe for revolution, and a love poem

And all the love letters of refugee women
Sent to men suspended on crosses

Overlooking the Martyrs Graveyard
Echoing the battle cries of Jaffa.

From I  REMEMBER  MY  NAME, ed. Vacy Vlanza. London: Novum Publishing, 2016.
*Dress, garment

RIGHT OF RETURN JEOPARDIZED BY TRUMP

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SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . . .

US  TO  ANNOUNCE  REJECTION  OF  PALESTINIAN  RIGHT  OF  RETURN      The United States Donald Trump administration will announce a suspension of funding to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and the rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.   ___According to Hebrew-language news outlets, the US administration is expected to announce its new policy early September, which would effectively cancel the right of return for Palestinians through several steps.  More. . .   Related. . .   Related. . .
VIDEO:  GAZA  MOURNS  CULTURAL  CENTER  DESTROYED  BY  ISRAEL      More. . .
KHREISHA  CALLS  FOR  EXPANDING  GREAT  MARCH  OF  RETURN  PROTESTS        Deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Hasan Khreisha on Sunday called for expanding the Great March of Return protests to include the occupied West Bank.   ___In an interview with the PIC, Khreisha asked the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to lift the sanctions imposed on Gaza and treat the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip equally.   ___Khreisha called on the Palestinian Authority to boycott meetings with US officials and stop normalization and negotiations with the Israeli side as a protest step against the “Deal of the Century”.    ___The Great March of Return was launched in Gaza on 30th March with five major camps set up along Gaza’s border with the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.    More. . .

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . . 

ISRAEL,  THE  OCCUPATION  IS  AT  THE  CORE  OF  WHO  YOU  ARE          Nadav Bigelman      If Jewish leaders and activists are going to speak up against Israel’s recent anti-democratic trends, they cannot remain silent on what has been corrupting its democracy for decades.    More. . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. “TOGETHER  WE  RISE.”  NATIONAL  CONFERENCE  in the Twin Cities, MN on September 28-30, 2018. Together We Rise will be a space for people to connect with and learn from others working in support of Palestinian rights.   More. . .
Bright Stars of Bethlehem.   ROOM  FOR  HOPE  TEXAS  FESTIVAL.  OCTOBER 5-13. It’s finally here! Bright Stars is coming to Texas for a multi-city festival of Palestinian culture. After postponing last year’s festival due to Hurricane Katrina, we are thrilled to be in Texas this fall.   More. . .

“. . . if we starve /We eat the dirt /And never depart . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

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“1948 Palestine War – Al Nakba” Refugee camp (Photo: Palestinian Culture and Society)

❶ Lieberman: Not a single Palestinian refugee will return to their lands in Israel

Background:  “Halper on Judaization, De-Arabization in Israel/Palestine.”

❷ Ehud Barak says a Palestinian state would be ‘non-viable’
❷ ― (ᴀ) Surviving trace of Muslims’ rootedness in Jerusalem
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Why Israelis must disrupt the occupation
❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ LIEBERMAN:  NOT  A  SINGLE  PALESTINIAN  REFUGEE  WILL  RETURN  TO  THEIR  LANDS  IN  ISRAEL 
Ma’an News Agency       
June 23, 2017.   During a speech at Israel’s Herzliya conference, aimed at discussing the country’s national policies, ultraright Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman rejected the possibility of Palestinian refugees from historic Palestine, which Israel was built on, being able to return to their lands within the 1967 borders, a right that is upheld by United Nations Resolution 194.
___“We will not agree to the return of a single refugee to within the ‘67 borders,” Lieberman reportedly said.
___The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a central demand among Palestinians and their leadership.  [. . . .] According to Israeli media, Lieberman also said that an end to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict would “not solve the problems – it will make them worse,” and noted that Israel should first “reach a regional agreement with moderate Sunni states, and then an agreement with the Palestinians.”   MORE . . .
RELATED: Israeli minister: no Palestinian state in West Bank   Days of Palestine  June 13, 2017
RELATED: Netanyahu vows to build settlement all over Palestine  Days of Palestine      June 7, 2017

Adas, Jane. “HALPER  ON  JUDAIZATION,  DE-ARABIZATION  IN  ISRAEL/PALESTINE.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, vol. 35, no. 4, Jun/Jul2016, pp. 67-68.
[. . . .] Halper described Zionism as “a century-long campaign to turn Palestine into Israel.” At its center is Judaization, a term Halper acknowledged sounds anti-Semitic, but is one the Israeli government officially uses. The result has been the deliberate fragmentation of the Palestinian people . . . . Add to that “Israel’s long campaign of assassinating or imprisoning any Palestinian leadership,” and the result, Halper said, is that Palestinians have no effective leadership, nor any mechanism to get together and plan.
___”De-Arabization” of the land, Halper continued, has by now succeeded. East Jerusalem now has more Jews than Palestinians. Within Israel, planning and zoning laws confine the 20 percent of the population who are “Israeli Arabs” (never, he noted “Israeli Palestinians”) to 3.5 percent of the land. Gaza is caged. Palestinians in “Judea and Samaria” are restricted to Areas A and B, less than 40 percent of the West Bank. There is no longer any detachable contiguous territory, meaning the two-state solution is dead.      FULL ARTICLE . . .    

❷ EHUD  BARAK  SAYS  A  PALESTINIAN  STATE  WOULD  BE  ‘NON-VIABLE’       Mondoweiss
Philip Weiss
June 23, 2017.   Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak says it is urgent to establish a Palestinian state– but he assured an Israeli audience that that state will be “non-viable.”
___Barak, a Labor leader who has challenged the current Prime Minister from the left, was speaking to the Herzliya conference, in remarks published yesterday. He said Israel’s future is in jeopardy because the world sees that Netanyahu is not sincere about a two-state solution. He went on:
___No one in the world . . . understands how come the government of Israel sees in a Palestinian state which is demilitarized– almost completely not viable, surrounded by the Israeli forces . . .  how can this non-viable state, which is surrounded, be an existential threat on Israel?… Existential threat on Israel? This sounds like either fabricated or visionary or completely crazy planning.       MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) SURVIVING  TRACE  OF  MUSLIMS’  ROOTEDNESS  IN  JERUSALEM
The Palestinian Information Center
June 21, 2017.   Overseeing the southern corner of holy al-Aqsa Mosque—Muslims’ 3rd holiest site—the Islamic Museum stands as a repository of a historical legacy that has survived for hundreds of years in Occupied Jerusalem.
___“The museum was established by the Supreme Muslim Council in 1923. It is a repository of artifacts that reflects the prolific nature of Jerusalem’s archaeological legacy” director of the Islamic Museum, Arafat Amr, told PIC.   MORE . . . 
❸ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  WHY  ISRAELIS  MUST  DISRUPT  THE  OCCUPATION
The Electronic Intifada   
Miko Peled
June 12, 2017.   One of the most disturbing aspects about the reality in Palestine is its normalcy.     ___It has become normal to see Palestinians shot and killed, even children.  [. . . .] No one likes to be arrested, particularly when it involves a night or two in jail, sharing a smoke-filled room with no ventilation and no company save cockroaches and two-bit criminals who hate activists even more than they hate Arabs.      ___If we are to play a role in the overthrow of injustice, and if we are to one day see an end to the oppression of more than half of the people with whom we live, then we must use our privilege and act to end the normalcy and the oppression.   MORE . . .

“WE  SHALL  REMAIN,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD  – 1970

It is a thousand times easier
For you to pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach the alligator speech, a thousand times easier
Than smothering with you oppression
The spark of an idea
Of forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind
In your eyes.

Here we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock
To quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here―we have a past
―a present
―and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.
Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain―in Lydda, in Ramlah
And Galilee.

From THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
About Tawfiq Zayyad

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“. . . Stop being so deathly afraid of the other . . .” (Lahab Assef Al-Jundi)

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key
A Palestinian woman carries a key, a symbol of the Nakba and the right of return, May 15, 2012. Palestinians took keys to their homes in 1948, hoping they would soon return. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.)
  • Background:  “Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Middle East Policy.

❶ Knesset Member: Comparing Palestinian Citizens of Israel with Illegal Israeli Settlers Is Immoral, Irrational and Ahistorical
❷ Israeli shooting of Palestinians: The media need to check the facts
❸ Right of return is the heart of Palestine’s struggle
❹ POETRY by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

  • Slater, Jerome. “Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Middle East Policy 22.3 (2015): 79-99.    ARTICLE.     

[. . . .] Terrorism, it is often said, is a weapon of the weak: the strong (such as states) have alternatives that the weak (such as non-state groups and movements) lack: diplomatic and political influence, economic incentives and disincentives, and powerful armed forces. For those reasons, state attacks on noncombatants—even assuming a just cause–have an even greater burden of moral proof than non-state attacks.     ___Nonetheless, even terrorism by the weak on behalf of a just cause . . .  could never be regarded as justifiable unless it was clear that all other means had failed. These means must include negotiations for a political settlement and/or nonviolent resistance if political means fail; they may even include armed resistance.
[. . . .]  Since the Palestinians have no chance of defeating the Israeli armed forces, the main alternatives to terrorism for the Palestinians have been negotiated political compromise and nonviolent resistance. . . . . All such negotiations have failed, overwhelmingly because no Israeli government has been prepared to agree to end the occupation, withdraw the settlers, and turn over East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza to the Palestinians.
___For that reason, the political path to a settlement is all but dead, leaving the Palestinians only nonviolent resistance as the alternative to resistance by terrorism. In fact, at various periods throughout their history the Palestinians and their political leaders have tried nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, and political protest.
[. . . .]    Tragically, it must be admitted that all of these methods so far have failed and show little promise of succeeding in the near future . . . .

❶ KNESSET  MEMBER:  COMPARING  PALESTINIAN  CITIZENS  OF  ISRAEL  WITH  ILLEGAL  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  IS  IMMORAL,  IRRATIONAL  AND  AHISTORICAL      Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA 
Sept. 11, 2016
Arab Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi, said that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent comparison of Palestinian citizens of Israel with its illegal settlers in Occupied Palestine is not only immoral, but a total departure from rationality, history and Israel’s obligations under international law, said an opinion piece published by the Israeli daily, Haartez.
___“He [Netanyahu] should realize that no matter Israel’s institutionalized system of discrimination, this is our homeland and we are here to stay.”
___The Knesset member stressed that Palestinian citizens of Israel are not foreign immigrants that came to Israel and applied for visas or citizenship, rather Israel went to them. They are the indigenous population of the country.”       MORE . . .

❷ ISRAELI  SHOOTING  OF  PALESTINIANS:  THE  MEDIA  NEED  TO  CHECK  THE  FACTS    
Middle East Eye
Ben White
Sept. 11, 2016
Even by the standards we have come to expect from Israel’s armed forces, the circumstances and aftermath of the killing of Mustafa Nimr by Israeli border police in Shuafat refugee camp last Monday take some beating for their sheer cruelty and gall.   ___At the end of an overnight raid . . .  Israeli forces opened fire on a vehicle in what authorities immediately described as a thwarted car-ramming attack. Passenger Mustafa Nimr was killed, while the driver, his cousin Ali, was wounded and detained.
___ The next day, Israeli officials informed the family that Mustafa had been “killed by mistake.”
[. . . .]    The question is this: what will it take for the Western media to stop taking Israeli authorities’ version of events at face value? And why is this even a problem to begin with?     MORE . . .

❸  RIGHT  OF  RETURN  IS  THE  HEART  OF  PALESTINE’S  STRUGGLE  
The Electronic Intifada     
Mohamed Mohamed
Sept. 6, 2016
A friend of mine recently shared an image meant to show solidarity with Palestine . . . . the barrage of Israeli propaganda attempting to bury the history of our existence is not surprising. One can expect no less from a state that was created through the expulsion and subjugation of an existing population.
[. . . .]     Discrimination against Palestinians is not perpetrated solely by the Israeli state; it is endemic to Israeli society itself. A recent Pew survey indicates that almost half of Israeli Jews believe that Palestinian citizens of Israel should be expelled from the country and 79 percent believe that Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel.
[. . . .]   The right of return, a cornerstone of the Palestinian struggle, is the principle that Palestinian refugees have an inalienable right to return to their homeland. This includes those who fled or were forced to flee in 1948 as well as in 1967, along with their descendants.
___The right of return is also enshrined in international law . . . .    Israel continues to violate its obligations under international law. It has no intention of correcting or addressing the historic injustices that created the Palestinian refugee problem, and the right of return has been one of the main issues preventing a just settlement of the conflict.       MORE . . .

“COLLATERAL  SAVAGE,”  BY  LAHAB  ASSEF  AL-JUNDI

Survivors of The Holocaust please
Talk to me. Help me understand―
Do you sanction what’s being done
In your names?

I thought your spirits
grew more gentle
having lived through the unspeakable.

Bombs are not less lethal or evil―
Stop being so deathly afraid of the other.

A thousand eyes for an eye?
Children of the Holocaust
please do not lash out
as if you lost your sight.

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born of Palestinian refugee parents and grew up in Damascus, Syria. He graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Not long after graduation, he discovered his passion for writing. He published his first poetry collection, A Long Way, in 1985. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, and many anthologies including Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, and Between Heaven and Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.

From BEFORE  THERE  IS  NOWHERE  TO  STAND:  PALESTINE  ISRAEL  POETS  RESPOND  TO  THE  STRUGGLE.  Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from Barnes & Noble.

“. . . For I had no address. I am a man in transit . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

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kufr aqab
Ahmad Sub Laban with uncollected garbage in No-Man’s-Land, Kufr ‘Aqab, East Jerusalem. (Photo: Amil Salman for Haaretz)

❶ Village in Jenin declared a closed military zone
❷ How one Jerusalem neighborhood has been left to fend for itself
❸ A brief history of the [use of the word] ‘Nakba’ in Israel
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  PALESTINIAN  DEAD  END  HIGHLIGHTS  THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN
❺ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ VILLAGE  IN  JENIN  DECLARED  A  CLOSED  MILITARY  ZONE
Ma’an News Agency
June 3, 2016
Israeli forces Thursday declared the village of al-Taybeh west of northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin a closed military zone, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
___Israeli soldiers stormed the village and declared it a closed military zone, local sources told WAFA, before carrying out a large-scale raid in the community. . . implemented for several hours as soldiers prevented anyone from leaving or entering the village.
MORE . . . 

❷ HOW  ONE  JERUSALEM  NEIGHBORHOOD  HAS  BEEN  LEFT  TO  FEND  FOR  ITSELF
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
Daoud Kuttab
June 2, 2016
When Tamara and Ala’a got married in 2012, in addition to their wedding in Beit Jala, they held a second ceremony in Jerusalem to ensure that they could register their marriage in the holy city. The couple moved into a small house in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Safa to make sure that they could legally prove their connection to Jerusalem [. . . .]
___. . . Israeli policy aimed at administratively reducing the Arab population of East Jerusalem, by forcing Jerusalemites to constantly have to prove their connection to Jerusalem or else risk losing their right to live in Jerusalem as permanent residents.
___After three years, the couple could no longer take it and decided to move to a high-rise apartment building in the north Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr Aqab.      MORE . . .        RELATED . . .              RELATED: AMERICAN MEDIA . . .

Following the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, the Israeli government implemented a tidal wave of closures throughout the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, imposing restrictions on the movement of citizens and intensifying their isolation. . . . These new policies were executed through mechanisms including military checkpoints scattered throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the separation wall [. . . .]___The Qalandia checkpoint was among these new tools used by the Israeli government to restrict the movement of Palestinians between the West Bank and East Jerusalem [. . . .]___The current goals of controlling Palestinian movement through Qalandia now exceed the security considerations under which the checkpoint was originally built. Today, the checkpoint no longer targets the Palestinian residents of the West Bank . . . . The real target today are the residents of East Jerusalem— the goal of the barrier being to harass them and restrict their movement in order to remove them, directly or indirectly, from the city.

  • Laban, Ahmad Sub. “Qalandia Checkpoint: A Main Palestinian Gateway to Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture 17.1/2 (2011): 104-108. [Available through EBSCO.]

❸ A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  [use of the word]  ‘NAKBA’  IN  ISRAEL
Mondoweiss
Eitan Bronstein Aparicio
May 16, 2016
This text describes the discourse on the Nakba — mostly the concept but also the historical event — in Israel. When did it appear? When did it decline and was repressed? What caused these changes? The attempt here is to describe historical moments, a periodization, from the founding of the state until today, in order to describe the relation to the term in each period and the changes it went through. This text deals with the attitude towards the Nakba in Hebrew almost exclusively and does not attempt to describe the attitudes and changes it went through in Arabic and in the Arab world.     MORE . . . 

In 2002, however, a group of Israeli Jewish peace educators [founded] the Zochrot Association, an organisation dedicated to ‘remembering the Nakba in Hebrew’. Zochrot operates from the premise that the Nakba needs to be confronted and owned as an integral part of Israeli Jewish identity . . . . to open up possibilities for different forms of memory. ‘The hegemonic Zionist discourse [. . . .] conjures up images of a violent memory, invariably exclusive and masculine, and leaves no room for the (Palestinian) ‘other’. Zochrot seeks to promote an alternative discourse on memory, one that strives towards true reconciliation and is openly inclusive and compassionate towards the Palestinian side’.
. . . . Over the past few years Zochrot has organised multiple events at the ruins of Miskeh, often in conjunction with groups of internally displaced Palestinians. . . . Ahmad Sa’di has noted the polyvalent character of Nakba-memory for Palestinians, ‘its ability to reclaim new terrains, to acquire new meanings and representations, and to maintain its powerful presence’; Zochrot’s practices . . . show how the Nakba can also acquire ‘new meanings and representations’ within an Israeli Jewish society in which memories of the Nakba, like the ruins of Miskeh, are actively erased. . . .  Zochrot’s acts of memory perform in the present an embodied hope for a bi-national future.

  • Weaver, Alain Epp. “Remembering The Nakba In Hebrew: Return Visits As The Performance Of A Binational Future.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Edinburgh University Press) 6.2 (2007): 125-144. [Available from Project Muse]
disappearingpalestine
Israel continues the Nakba due to as yet unrealized plans of expanding its borders. (Image published: Alternative Information Center – AIC, May 15, 2016)

❹ Opinion/Analysis: PALESTINIAN  DEAD  END  HIGHLIGHTS  THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
Randa Farah 
May 6, 2014
(Blogger’s Note: Written before the assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014. It is remarkable how little has changed in the interim.)

Like a broken record perpetually playing a deeply disturbing refrain, the peace process has scratched on despite missed deadlines, threats, and promises, with intermittent halts . . . .  the consequences to the occupied, dispossessed, and exiled Palestinian people have been disastrous, and their termination has been long overdue. It is worth drawing some of these lessons to map a different road moving forward [. . . .]
___The cost to the Palestinian people of endlessly futile negotiations has been very great, particularly as the PLO/PA has prioritized the creation of a Palestinian state over addressing the Palestinian right of return . . . . In fact, the right of return should be treated as intrinsic to the right to self-determination and entwined with the aim of establishing an independent state and not as a stand-alone cause . . . .  the rights of refugees remain at the core of the Palestinian national liberation movement; the Israelis know that very well, and it haunts them.      MORE . . . .

(Blogger’s Note: By the poet quoted by Randa Farah)

“AN ADDRESS,” BY RASHID HUSSEIN

―1―
Hairs as short as my life is
And a mouth as sensuous as my dreams
And fire is her voice
And so is the music
Yet she wants me to rest
On an easy chair
And keep my thoughts clean.

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give . . .
For the angels are dead,
And I am not with them.

―2―
A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She wanted my address.
She asked: “Where lives the ‘Prince’?”
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit,
Twenty years in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

Rashid Hussein  
See also  
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.

“. . . We will guard even the shadow of our fig and olive trees. . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

(Please read “Purpose” above. Thank you.)

House demolition in A-Tur, East Jerusalem, June 2009. A Day after the municipality of Jerusalem announced it’d stop demolishing homes in East Jerusalem, Abu-Jumaa’s house in A-Tur was demolished (Photo: Activestills)
House demolition in A-Tur, East Jerusalem, June 2009. A Day after the municipality of Jerusalem announced it’d stop demolishing homes in East Jerusalem, Abu-Jumaa’s house in A-Tur was demolished (Photo: Activestills)

❶ Israel is pulling the West Bank out from under Palestinian feet
❷ Israeli Troops Seize Home of PA Police Chief
❸ Ashrawi: “Israel is in the business of creating refugees, not providing them with a safe haven.”
❹ Netanyahu: EU plan to label settlement goods ‘unjust’
❺ “The right of return; a forgotten issue,” by Dr. Ghada Karmi **
❻ “The Impossible,” poetry by Tawfiq Zayyad

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

❶ +972 MAGAZINE
ISRAEL  IS  PULLING  THE  WEST  BANK  OUT  FROM  UNDER  PALESTINIAN  FEET
Natasha Roth
Sept. 11, 2015
Israel has issued over 14,000 demolition orders against Palestinian structures in Area C of the West Bank since 1988, according to a new report released by the UN’s humanitarian agency. Nearly 3,000 demolitions have been carried out in that time, leaving more than 11,000 orders outstanding that affect over 17,000 structures.
____OCHA-oPt, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, derived its report from figures released earlier this year by the Civil Administration, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank.
More. . .
Related. . . 
Related. . .

❷ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ISRAELI  TROOPS  SEIZE  HOME  OF  PA  POLICE  CHIEF
Sept. 11, 2015
Israeli military forces, on Friday, raided the house of Palestinian Authority police chief in Nablus, Abd al-Latif al-Qaddumi, and turned his home into a military outpost after evicting his wife and children.
____PA police spokesperson Luay Irzeiqat told Ma’an News Agency that Israeli forces raided the home in Kafr Qaddum village and locked al-Qaddumi’s family in one room before declaring the property a military outpost.
Shortly afterward, Israeli forces expelled the family from the home and took it over.
More. . .

Weekly demonstration against the Apartheid Wall in Kafr Qaddums Village. Photo, International Solidarity Movement.
Weekly demonstration against the Apartheid Wall in Kafr Qaddums Village. Photo, International Solidarity Movement.

❸ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ASHRAWI:  “ISRAEL  IS  IN  THE  BUSINESS  OF  CREATING  REFUGEES,  NOT  PROVIDING  THEM  WITH  A  SAFE  HAVEN.”
Sept. 8, 2015
In response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu’s rejection of accepting any refugees in Israel, PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi said:
“Israel is in the business of creating refugees and ethnic cleansing; it bears a moral responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian refugees and the grave injustices of the past.”
____According to the PNN, Ashrawi called on all members of the international community, in particular the United Nations, to support efforts to bring the Palestinian refugees to Palestine. “Israel should not be allowed to prevent us from welcoming the refugees to their rightful homeland,” Ashrawi added.
____These comments were made in a meeting Dr. Ashrawi had with United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov at the PLO Headquarters.
More. . . 

❹ THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
NETANYAHU:  EU  PLAN  TO  LABEL  SETTLEMENT  GOODS  ‘UNJUST’
Sept. 11, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday attacked an EU resolution on labelling goods produced in the occupied Palestinian territories. . .
____[He said] “It is simply a distortion of justice and of logic and I think that it also hurts peace; it does not advance peace. THE  ROOT  OF  THE  CONFLICT  IS  NOT  THE  TERRITORIES,  AND  THE  ROOT  OF  THE  CONFLICT  IS  NOT  THE  SETTLEMENTS.”
[. . . .]
____The European parliament earlier voted in favour of a non-binding resolution to label all exports originating in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
More. . .
Related. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN;  A  FORGOTTEN  ISSUE
Dr Ghada Karmi
Sept. 1 2015
No issue has been so much at the heart of the Palestine cause, or so resistant to resolution, as the right of return. Palestinians worldwide see it as the basis of their case. Enshrined in international law and historical precedent, it has acquired an almost sacred quality for Palestinians, an untouchable right that no one can dispute. . . .
____Yet, far from this fundamental plank of the Palestinian case being recognised as such and forming the core of any final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignoring it has become the norm in political discourse. [. . . .]
____Watering down the right of return, and pandering to Israel, is not the way to solve the problem. Only solutions that can reconcile the right of Palestinian return with the existence of an Israeli Jewish community which, whether we like it or not, now exists and has acquired rights too, can succeed.
More . . .
** Ghada Karmi (born 1939) is a Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic. She writes on Palestinian issues in The Guardian, The Nation, and Journal of Palestine Studies. She is a fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Arab & Islamic studies at Exeter University.

“THE  IMPOSSIBLE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
It is much easier for you
To pass an elephant through a needle’s eye,
Or catch fried fish in a galaxy,
Plough the sea,
Force a crocodile to speak
Than to destroy by persecution
The shimmering glow of a belief,
Or check our march,
One single step.

As if we were a thousand prodigies
Spreading everywhere
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee. . .
Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
And in your throat we shall stay,
A piece of glass, a cactus thorn,
And in your eyes,
A blazing fire.

Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
Cleaning dishes in taverns,
Filling cups for the masters,
Sweeping sooty kitchens
To snatch a bite from your blue fangs
For our children.
Here we shall stay.
A wall upon your breast,
Facing starvation,
Struggling with rags, defying,
Singing our songs,
Swarming the angry streets with our demonstrations,
Filling the dungeons with pride,
Rearing vengeance in new generations.
Like a thousand prodigies,
We roam along
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee.

Here we shall stay,
Go then and jump into the lake.
We will guard even the shadow of our fig and olive trees,
And ferment our cause as yeast does dough.
Here we shall stay with steel-cold nerves,
And red hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And lull starvation with dust,
But we shall not depart.
Here we shall spill our dearest blood,
Here we have a past,
A present,
A future.
Stay we will, like a thousand prodigies,
In Lidda, Ramallah, the Galilee.
Strike deep in the earth
Our living roots.

From: A  LOVER  FROM  PALESTINE  AND  OTHER  POEMS:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  PALESTINIAN  POETRY.  Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
About Tawfiq Zayyad

Palestinians fleeing their homes and villages, 1948.
Palestinians fleeing their homes and villages, 1948.

“. . . We are a country of words. Speak speak. . .” (Mahmoud Darwish)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Yarmouk Refugees Waiting for Humanitarian Aid / UNRWA
Yarmouk Refugees Waiting for Humanitarian Aid / UNRWA

❶ From ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES IN SYRIA
Emma Flesche
July 9, 2015
After the Nakba of 1948, approximately 90,000 Palestinians became refugees in Syria. The United Nations . . . estimates this number [has become] close to 560,000. Most of these Palestinians lived in one of the 15 refugee camps in Syria, the largest of which was al-Yarmouk. . .
____With the outbreak of the current war in Syria, attacks on Palestinian refugee camps . . . . created a wave of secondary mass displacement of Palestinian refugees within Syria. . . . attack on the Yarmouk camp led to a mass displacement of refugees that reduced the size of the camp from 160,000 to about 30,000.
____UNRWA estimates that more than 70 percent of the Palestinian refugees in Syria are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, and that more than 50 percent have been internally displaced as a result of the conflict.
(More. . .)

❷ From VOICE OF AMERICA NEWS
UN: 4 MILLION REFUGEES HAVE FLED SYRIA
Lisa Schlein
July 9, 2015
GENEVA— The U.N. refugee agency said the number of refugees fleeing conflict in Syria has topped 4 million, making Syria the world’s biggest refugee crisis in a generation.
____With no solution to the conflict in sight, the UNHCR said it expects the number of refugees to exceed 4.25 million by the end of the year.
____The U.N. refugee agency said this milestone comes barely 10 months after the 3 million refugee mark was reached.
(More. . .)

❸ Special Report
FROM KINDERUSA
THE INHUMANITY OF YARMOUK
Dalell Mohmed
April 16, 2015
Yarmouk is the largest refugee camp in Syria:
– As of April 2015, approximately 18,000 Palestinians remain trapped in Yarmouk, including 3,500 children
– People are living on just 400 calories a day–sometimes less with infants dying of malnourishment, mothers dying at child birth, and residents resorting to eating leaves and animal feed
– Residents have not had electricity since 2013 and with this, no running water.
KinderUSA is preparing emergency aid for Palestinian families from Yarmouk, but we need your support.
(More. . .)

caption: A photo from the Israel, Syrian border along the Golan Heights showing IDF soldiers conversing with Jabhat al Nusra fighters. By MintPress News Desk, May 4, 2015.
A photo from the Israel, Syrian border along the Golan Heights showing IDF soldiers conversing with Jabhat al Nusra fighters. By MintPress News Desk, May 4, 2015.

❹ From THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEM)
SYRIANS IN OCCUPIED GOLAN FURIOUS ABOUT ISRAEL’S ALLIANCE WITH AL-QAEDA
Asa Winstanley
June 30, 2015
Israel’s most unlikely alliance is that it currently engages in with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
____Despite a long history of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric, the main victims of al-Qaeda’s horrible sectarian attacks have been Muslims in the Arab world, along with western civilian and military targets. The movement has rarely targeted Israel. . . .
____But now, on the smaller sector of the Golan which is under Syrian control, the civil war rages. And. . . rebels forces in that area are dominated by al-Qaeda. Yet there has been cooperation between the Israeli military and the rebels. . . .
(More. . .)

❺ Background essay
From AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND THE RIGHT OF RETURN
Updated 2015
Approximately 750,000 Palestinians were displaced and became refugees as a result of the 1948 war which led to the founding of Israel. None of these displaced persons were ever allowed to return to the homes or communities from which they were displaced and the Palestinian refugee population has continued to grow in the time that has passed since 1948. Today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world. The reality of Palestinian forced displacement is at the core of the Palestinian experience and the Palestinian refugee issue is at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This paper provides background information on the history of the Palestinian refugee issue and the politics of the right of return.
(More. . .)

“WE TRAVEL LIKE OTHER PEOPLE,” BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

We travel like other people, but we return to nowhere. As if traveling
Is the way of the clouds. We have buried our loved ones in the
. . darkness of the clouds, between the roots of the trees.
And we said to our wives; go on giving birth to people like us
. . for hundreds of years so we can complete this journey
To the hour of a country, to a meter of the impossible.
We travel in the carriages of the psalms, sleep in the tents of the
. . prophets and come out of the speech of the gypsies.
We measure space with a hoopoe’s beak or sing to while away the
. . distance and cleanse the light of the moon.
Your path is long so dream of seven women to bear this long path
On your shoulders. Shake for them palm trees so as to know their
. . names and who’ll be the mother of the boy of Galilee.
We have a country of words. Speak speak so we may know the end of
. . this travel.

From: Adonis; Mahmud Darwish; and Samih al-Qasim. VICTIMS OF A MAP: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF ARABIC POETRY. Trans. Abdullah al-Udhari. London: Saqi Books, 2008. Available from Amazon.
Biographical sketch of Mahmoud Darwish.

A Palestinian relative salvages what he can from his family's belongings amid the rubble of the al-Akhras family home after it was hit by Israeli strike in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. Two people were wounded in the airstrike on the house according Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)
A Palestinian relative salvages what he can from his family’s belongings amid the rubble of the al-Akhras family home after it was hit by Israeli strike in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. Two people were wounded in the airstrike on the house according Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)