Palestine: occupation soldiers harass and detain Palestinian schoolchildren

A woman and two school girls attempt to flee from tear gas fired by Israeli forces in the West Bank on 17 November 2019 [HAZEM BADER/AFP/Getty Images]

September 29, 2021

Israeli occupation soldiers today chased Palestinian children on their way to school in the village of Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya, near Nablus, Wafa has reported.

Local residents told the news agency that soldiers detained and harassed the children, and forced them to take an alternative longer and more complicated route to school.

Earlier this week, an Israeli settler parked his car at the entrance of the village secondary school for girls, in an attempt to provoke the children and their teachers. Soldiers closed the school gate and prevented the pupils from entering and leaving the premises.

They also detained a 17-year-old Palestinian boy from the nearby village of Ammuriya for over two hours. He was released without charge.

Due to its location on a major West Bank road used by settlers commuting between their illegal settlements and Jerusalem, schoolchildren are frequently harassed and attacked by soldiers and settlers alike.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Human rights abuses against the Palestinians and breaches of international law are common, say human rights organisations.

More than 600,000 Jewish Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. All of Israel's settlements are illegal under international law, which the apartheid state treats with contempt.

READ: Europe wants a school curriculum for Israel to occupy Palestinian minds as well as land