Watch Israel Demolishes 4 Palestinian Schools Just Days Before Classes Begin video on DTube
You'll have to excuse the excited voices of my young children in the background, as I try and present this information.
Around 80 children aged five to 10 from the village of Jub-Ad-Dhib had to attend classes in cramped tarpaulin tents or under the hot sun on Wednesday. One day earlier, Israeli authorities had decided to confiscate and destroy steel terrapin cabins used as school buildings along with other educational equipment.
The area was sealed off, declared a military zone, and security forces used stun grenades to keep residents away, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a statement.
The security forces also removed solar panels powering a school for Bedouin children near Jerusalem on 9 August, ignoring a High Court petition over their removal in the process.
The demolition of a school building the night before the start of the year epitomises the administrative cruelty and systematic harassment by authorities designed to drive Palestinians from their land. -Roy Yellin of B’Tselem
More than 300 structures in the occupied West Bank demolished by the Israeli authorities in 2016 were at least in part funded by the EU or international NGOs, an Israeli military official said earlier this year.
Last year also saw the highest number of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian structures since rights groups began record-keeping.
