Hello, and welcome to this week’s dispatch.

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The June/July pick for the PalFest Bookshelf is Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price. We asked the poet Zena Agha for her impressions of the book: 

Find out more about the book, and subscribe to the Bookshelf, here.

Join Palestine House for an engaging historical presentation exploring 7,000 years of Gaza's rich and enduring past, from the Neolithic era to the present day.

This lecture traces Gaza's development through successive historical periods, examining its strategic location at the crossroads of ancient trade routes and the many civilisations that have shaped its cultural, economic, and social landscape. Attendees will gain insight into the region's historical significance, the cultural contributions of the peoples who lived there, and the archaeological and historical evidence that documents Gaza's long record of human settlement.

The presentation will also explore the continuity of the communities that have inhabited the land throughout recorded history and reflect on the resilience and perseverance of the people of Gaza in the face of centuries of political change, conquest, and conflict.

Find out more and get your tickets here.

We’ve just launched the tenth issue of The Key, our landmark online magazine that places Palestine at the center of the world. The new issue features an essay on Israeli imperialism in Nigeria, a stirring poem from Gaza, and more.

There are very few platforms publishing work like this. Indeed, across all our publications and live events, our goal is to expand platforms for writers and thinkers whose work is committed to the liberation of Palestine and resistance to colonialism.

While we are committed to keeping this work free upon publication, we depend on paid subscribers to ensure we can support the writers producing this work. So we hope you would consider supporting this work by becoming a paid subscriber.

For $2 a month, you’ll get new articles on The Key, as well as full access to its growing archive and the PalFest Podcast - and you’ll be the first to know about our upcoming events in your city.

At $10 a month we’ve organised for 10% discounts at bookshops and publishers around the world, as well as in our own shop. 

For $15 you’ll get a PalFest Bookshelf book selection in the mail every two months, along with unique extras. 

There are even more options at $25 and above - check out our Subscriber tiers and see what might work for you.

Thanks for supporting our work.

What Do You Do When You See Your Country Disappearing? – An interview with Palestinian-French writer Karim Kattan about how the past several years have reshaped his relationship to literature, the politics of writing in French, and identity: “Faced with the current genocide in Gaza, institutional censorship, and the systematic attempt to silence and marginalize Palestinian voices in places like France, embracing this identity has become a political and moral obligation.”

‘I Would Never Release Him’: Marwan Barghouti and Palestine’s Future – Muhammad Shehada describes the stalemate of electoral politics in Palestine today, and draws on examples from South Africa to consider paths out of Israeli apartheid.

Are the "Birth Pangs" of a New Middle East Finally Here? – Amal Ghandour considers whether the war on Iran and its fallout in the region could prove to be the harbinger of a version of the Middle East unwanted by the United States and Israel.

Resisting Palestinian Erasure in an Age of Genocide – Adrianne Kalfopoulou reviews Tareq Baconi’s Fire in Every Direction: “There is ultimately no ‘return’ to any place of origin as those places have either been fundamentally changed or lost, but rather…there is ongoingness; private geographies intersect with physical geographies and existing realities embody belonging as an assemblage.”

The ICJ Opinions on Palestine: Possibilities and Limitations – Dana Farraj analyzes whether the ICJ’s decisions about Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity can be leveraged to advance legal and diplomatic accountability at the international and domestic levels.

Do Pro-Palestinian Activists Have the Right to a Fair Trial Anymore in Europe? – Eliška Koldová, Michaela Švandová, and Maja Vusilović report on the case of Youssef Moursi, a Czech activist who has been held in pretrial detention for more than two months for alleged involvement in a fire at an arms factory, to consider how the law violates itself in order to repress the Palestine solidarity movement.

Israel’s Seizure of Palestinian Church Land Raises Renewed Fears of Efforts to Erase Christians From Jerusalem – Reporting from Silwan, Majd Jawad speaks to the Muslim caretaker of church land that Israel is seizing under the pretext of creating “green spaces.” 

The Healthcare System Is Collapsing in the West Bank – Charlotte Ritz-Jack reports on the rising costs and dwindling resources of healthcare in the West Bank as a consequence of Israel’s systematic economic stranglehold over the Palestinian Authority and the deepening of the occupation.

Lebanon’s Surrender Agreement: Hezbollah Expert Amal Saad on Beirut’s “Framework” With Israel – Jeremy Scahill speaks to Amal Saad about the agreement between the Lebanese government and Israel on the disarmament of Hezbollah and the prospects of resurgent regional war.

Arming the State Against the Nation: The Illusion of a Military Solution in Lebanon – Jonathan Hassine examines the history of the Lebanese state’s failed attempts to quash the popular resistance, and the violence that such attempts bring about.

Gathering Our Remains: An Interview with Samer Abu Hawwash and Huda J. Fakhreddine on Palestinian Poetry at a Time of Genocide – Samer Abu Hawwash and Huda J. Fakhreddine speak to Alton Melvar M. Depanas “about the contours of Palestinian poetry at a time of genocide, and how there can remain ‘but the poem, the witness, the triumph against time, the signpost in the wasteland of history’”: “To translate Palestinian voices in this moment should be an act of resistance and reclamation: an effort to bend English, to create space within it for Palestine on its own terms, rather than an act of catering to the inadequacies or anxieties of the other.”

The Rhythm of Revolution – Zaina Alsous reviews the new edition of Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Palestinian Resistance, as a testament to left internationalism and the anticolonial remaking of the world: “If poetry must hold the weight of catalyzing historic transformation, it is destined to come up short. Revolution, after all, has to do with who commands the guns, who owns the land, who holds the petroleum and the mines. But every break in the order of things might also return us to the long unbroken line of those who carried the flame when they too felt unsure of the path forward—a way to find and be found within an ever-emerging shared language.”