On Thursday evening, 12 successive explosions were heard as Israeli warplanes flew over Gaza City, destroying the popular Said al-Mishal Foundation for Culture and Science cultural center, one of the very few cultural outlets left for Gaza’s youth in the besieged enclave. “Israel is trying to deliver its message that massive war is not just against humanity or our existence; it is a war against every part of Palestinian identity including music, culture or even Dabkeh dance,” said Nidal Eissa, Deputy Director of the Foundation, which was inaugurated in 2004.

Kim Jensen writes, “Everything about the trial of Dareen Tatour was like fiction. Everything required the willing suspension of disbelief. From the opening pages, it was impossible to digest the premise that an unknown young poet from a small town in the Galilee would be hauled off by Israeli police and border guards for a smattering of posts on the internet. To get the truth, sometimes you have to quit and start from scratch. Everything about the story of Dareen Tatour is the story of Falasteen.”

Amira Hass reports: “The state is willing to allow six women cancer patients to leave the Gaza Strip for the West Bank for treatment that is not available in the West Bank, or to go abroad for treatment they cannot afford. However, it will not allow the women, who are severely ill, to go to either of two Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem which can treat them.”

On Democracy Now! released Palestinian prisoner Ahed Tamimi says the occupation and checkpoints and conflict are a product of Zionism, which is not Judaism. ‘Liberal-Zionists’ are going to have a hard time with this one. They have been insisting that the 1967 occupation can be reversed without addressing Zionism. In fact, they believe that reversing it is essential to maintaining the Zionist Jewish State.

Three Palestinians were killed during pre dawn Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip Thursday. Among the dead were a woman, who was nine months pregnant, and her 18-month-old daughter. Thursday’s events are the latest in a series of severe flare ups over the past few months in Gaza, leading many local and international officials to speculate that another large-scale Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory could be imminent.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in NY has an overpowering exhibit of photographs of the Lodz ghetto in Poland taken by Henryk Ross. Among the most disturbing pictures are those of happy Jewish policemen who collaborated with the Nazis, evidence of the socialized acceptance that any people will have of injustice.

Rashida Tlaib, 42, won yesterday’s Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, defeating five other candidates and poised to become the first Muslim woman and first Palestinian-American in Congress. She will run in November unopposed as there is no Republican or third party candidate vying in the race.

We hear regularly from people like you, who value the reporting and analysis provided by Mondoweiss. But this summer, as we push to raise the funds for more news, there are hundreds of past supporters we haven’t heard from yet. If you give $25 or more by August 10, we’ll send you a Mondoweiss poster showcasing the work of talented Palestinian photojournalists. Just think: if everyone who reads Mondoweiss regularly could give today, the investment would total tens of thousands of dollars. And all the gifts we receive in response to this message will go directly toward paying Palestinian reporters, photographers and videographers.

Tomorrow, Professor Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi and her lawyers will appear before a Federal Court in San Francisco to once again challenge a frivolous lawsuit filed by the Lawfare Project, which describes itself as “an arm of the pro-Israel community.” In this article, Professor Abdulhadi offers an update and critical analysis on the ongoing lawsuit against her and the struggle for scholarship, pedagogy and advocacy on justice for/in Palestine as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice.

On Monday, Israeli forces raided a village in the central West Bank to arrest Palestinian journalist Ibrahim Rantisi. Rantisi’s arrest marked the sixth Palestinian journalist to be detained by Israeli forces in a single week, causing alarm among Palestinian media and journalists that Israel’s suppression of their work, will soon also become a daily occurrence .