In Two Months Israeli Occupation Forces Have Arrested 24 Students, Wounded 200 Students And Teachers

PNN/ Bethlehem/

The Palestinian ministry of higher education on Thursday issued a report on Israeli violations against education in Palestine during the months of  April and may. The report showed that Israeli occupation arrested about 24 students from the southern provinces of the West Bank. The ministry published the list of names of detainees in the report as well.

Other than the arrests, the report showed that about 200 students and teachers were targeted and injured by Israeli forces, a majority of them who suffered teargas suffocation.

Israeli occupation forces also delayed 9 teachers from reaching their places of work, by detaining them on checkpoints.

The ministry pointed out that the occupation obstructed school day on the 9th of April in two schools. One because of the marathon in Al-Sawiya school, and another in Hebron since soldiers were showering the school yards with teargas.

The ministry called on the human rights defenders and organizations to stop the Israeli violations against the education in Palestine and exposing those arbitrary acts through international media.

Israeli Occupation Forces Detain Palestinian Children’s School Bus For 2 Hours

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces held a children’s school bus on on the main road leading from Nablus for two hours late on Monday claiming one of the children had thrown a stone at Jewish settlers from the bus.A Palestinian Authority liaison official in Nablus, Usama Abu Arab, said that Israeli forces stopped the bus, carrying children between the ages of 10 and 12, along the main road between Nablus and the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar.

The bus was returning to Ramallah from a school trip. The children are students at Shuhadaa Silwad school in Ramallah.

Abu Arab said that the bus was released after two hours.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the incident.

Israeli authorities regularly detain Palestinians for alleged stone throwing incident.

Last March marked two years that five boys from the northern West Bank village of Hares have been held under administrative detention over such allegations.

Despite heavily contested evidence, the boys, aged 16 to 17 at the time of their arrest, each face 20 charges of attempted murder and potential life imprisonment for allegedly throwing stones.

“Hares Boys,” an activist blog dedicated to raising awareness of their case, wrote: “If the boys are convicted, this case would set a legal precedent which would allow the Israeli military to convict any Palestinian child or youngster for attempted murder in cases of stone-throwing.”

According to Military Court Watch, there were 182 Palestinian children in Israeli detention as of Feb. 28, 2015, including 25 children aged 15 or younger, nine more than the previous month.

Israeli Occupation Forces Raid Palestinian School, Prevent Students From Leaving

RAMALLAH, March 25, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Wednesday raided a school to the west of Ramallah, where they detained students and the teaching staff inside the school and prevented them from leaving for almost two hours, according to the school principle.

The principle, Samir Badir, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers raided the school in a vicious manner, under the pretext of throwing rocks at the soldiers, and imposed a tight siege on the school; preventing anyone from entering or leaving the school for about two hours.

The principle added that this is the second time such incident happens, however under a different pretext.

He said that Israeli soldiers threatened to shut down the school, which is located near an illegal Israeli settlement, an Israeli military camp and a road used by settlers, stressing that Israeli forces await the chance to take over the school for the benefit of settlement expansion.

Israeli army previously carried out numerous attacks, with the deliberate and reckless use of force, against schools and educational facilities across the West Bank, in a serious violation of international law and students’ right to pursue education in a safe environment.

The Global Coalition to protect Education from Attack said, “During situations of armed conflict, attacks on education may violate international humanitarian and criminal law and constitute war crimes (or crimes against humanity during war or peacetime) as set out in the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and customary international humanitarian law.”

During the July aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel bombarded several UNRWA-run schools, which Human Rights Watch, along with worldwide condemnations, slammed as “a war crime.”

T.R/M.H

Israeli Occupation Army Breaks Into Two Palestinian Schools Near Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM, March 22, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli army Sunday broke into two schools in the village of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, according to a local source.

Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Anti-Settlement Committee in the village, told WAFA an army force broke into a girl’s school, spreading fear among the students.

Soldiers also stormed a nearby boy’s school; the teaching staff prevented the soldiers from coming near the students and forced them out of the school, said Salah. There were no reports of arrests or confrontations.

The village has been a target of recurrent Israeli army raids, which hampers the daily life of local villagers.

M.N/M.H

Headlines From Palestine: February 26, 2015

Gaza

Jan 27, 2015 Mohammed Abed

Reconstructing Gaza To Take More Than 100 YEARS At Current Rate

At current rates it could take more than 100 years to complete essential building of homes, schools and health facilities in Gaza unless the Israeli blockade is lifted, Oxfam warned Thursday as new figures show the amount of vital construction materials entering Gaza dropped last month.

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Hate Crimes

 

A photo of the vandalized school in Urif

Hate Crime: Israeli Terrorists Spray-Paint Racist Graffiti On Palestinian School

 Settlers on Thursday spray-painted racist graffiti on the walls of a Palestinian school in the village of Urif south of Nablus, a Palestinian official said.

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AFP Menahem Kahana

Hate Crime: Israeli Terrorists Set Fire To Christian Seminary In Jerusalem

Suspected Israeli extremists set fire to a Greek Orthodox seminary in the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday and sprayed hate slogans on the walls, police said.

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Israeli Terrorists Uproot A Hundred Palestinian Olive Saplings in Hebron

 Israeli settlers uprooted Wednesday a hundred olive saplings recently-planted in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, said a local activist organization.

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Demolitions

Israeli Occupation To Demolish Palestinian School, Two Homes Near Hebron

Israeli army forces Thursday notified a school and two homes constructed on land categorized as Area C in Hebron, of demolition orders under the pretext of construction without permits, said a local activist.

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Political Arrests And Prisners

Israeli Military Court Bans 4 Palestinian Women From Entering Aqsa Compound

An Israeli court on Thursday banned four Palestinian women from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for periods of between 10 and 60 days, a lawyer said.

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Israeli Occupation Forces Detain At Least 10 Palestinians From West Bank Districts

Israeli forces Thursday detained at least 10 Palestinians, including a minor, and summoned another from West Bank districts, said the Palestinian Prisoner Club.

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Hate Crime: Israeli Terrorists Spray-Paint Racist Graffiti On Palestinian School

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Settlers on Thursday spray-painted racist graffiti on the walls of a Palestinian school in the village of Urif south of Nablus, a Palestinian official said.Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of settlers from the illegal Yizhar settlement sprayed anti-Palestinian graffiti on the school.

“Death to Arabs” was also written on the walls.

The perpetrators were allegedly affiliated to the Hilltop Youth, a group of notoriously hardline Israeli nationalists who often live in illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank.

The group has been known to target Palestinians and their property in so-called “price-tag” attacks.

Daghlas accused the Israeli government of “giving free rein to extremist settlers to carry out attacks against Palestinians in an attempt to win settler votes in the upcoming Knesset elections.”

There were at least 329 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2014, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Gaza Students Still Not Allowed By Israeli Occupation To Study At West Bank Universities

Middle East Monitor

Palestinian students from Gaza are still prevented by Israel from studying at West Bank universities, after an announcement this week to the contrary was retracted as a mistake.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced that a quota of 50 students would be permitted to exit Gaza “for the purpose of academic studies” in the West Bank. However, as related by NGO Gisha, the very same evening, COGAT clarified that there had been a “clerical error” in the relevant document, and that there would be no such permits.

The Israeli government has opposed Palestinians from Gaza studying in the West Bank on the grounds of ‘security’. The High Court of Justice has also rejected petitions by human rights groups on the matter, including one filed on behalf of five women studying gender, democracy and law.

In 2009, 21-year-old, Bethlehem University student Berlanty Azzam was arrested at a West Bank checkpoint and immediately returned to the Gaza Strip, after a solider noted Gaza City as the town of residence on her ID.

The ill-fated announcement was included on a list of various measures apparently prepared by Israel to “ease” restrictions. According to reports from COGAT and Palestinian officials, it would appear that the number of merchant permits will rise, as will the type and quantity of goods permitted to exit from Gaza for sale in the West Bank.

Back in November, two truckloads of wooden planks left Gaza for sale in the West Bank, the first time that wood from Gaza has been sold in the West Bank since the blockade was imposed in 2007. The same month, some truckloads of clothes, fish, and agricultural products made the same journey, again for the first time.

This is less indicative of Israeli authorities’ generosity but rather highlights the deception that is the ‘security’ rationale for the restrictions in the first place. Why were Gaza’s farmers allowed to send cucumbers to the West Bank on November 6, 2014 – but not before? Why won’t Israel lift restrictions on exports, save for piecemeal exceptions?

The continued refusal to allow Palestinian students from Gaza to study in West Bank universities is further evidence that Israel’s approach is one based on collective punishment. Worth remembering, the next time someone tries justifying yet another apartheid policy in the name of ‘security’.

For First Time In 15 YEARS(Long Before Hamas Controlled Gaza)Israeli Occupation Will Allow Gaza Students To Study In West Bank

GISHA February 18, 2015. Today, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced that he will be allowing students from Gaza to study in the West Bank for the first time since the year 2000.  Israel has so far staunchly refused to allow students from Gaza to travel to the West Bank for academic studies, claiming students pose a security threat and that allowing students to travel goes against the “separation policy”.

The new “closure permission status” (Hebrew) document, which lists, among other things, the criteria for applications to travel through Erez Crossing, states: “Students are permitted to exit for the purpose of academic studies in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], subject to a quota of 50 students”. It is hard to discern from the document what time frame the quota refers to, or the criteria by which students will be permitted to exit. The permit may be for the September academic term.

Gisha has been working to promote freedom of movement for students for close to a decade. We have petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) on several occasions on behalf of students from Gaza who wanted to study occupational therapy in the West Bank. The state opposed, saying that students are collectively considered a risk group and that West Bank universities are “greenhouses for growing terrorism”. The HCJ rejected Gisha’s petition in 2007, but recommended to set up a mechanism for reviewing cases on an individual basis. The HCJ rejected another petition filed by Gisha in 2010.

In September 2012, the HCJ rejected a petition filed by Gisha and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights on behalf of five women from the Gaza Strip studying gender, democracy and law, who asked to travel to Birzeit University in the West Bank. The court accepted the state’s position that Israel has no obligation to ensure Gaza residents’ right to study in the West Bank, that it had a right to deny the students’ transit through its territory and that setting up a mechanism to review exceptional cases would impinge on the right to equality.

It appears that in the months that have passed since Operation Protective Edge, top security officials have come to recognize how essential the connection between Gaza and the West Bank is for Gaza’s rehabilitation and recovery, the advancement of which has been publically acknowledged as in Israel’s interest. It remains to be seen whether this results in more meaningful changes to access in and out of Gaza. We hope that this modest quota is just a first step on the way to allowing Gaza residents to reach educational opportunities and to fulfil their potential.

Israeli Occupation Soldiers Assault Palestinian Student Near Jenin

JENIN (Ma’an) — Israeli military forces on Sunday evening assaulted a Palestinian university student near Jenin, locals said.
The undergraduate student, Muhammad Osama Suleiman, was assaulted by soldiers as he walked home at night in the village of Ajja.
Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers had raided the village at 8 p.m. firing tear gas and stun grenades, with local youths responding by throwing rocks.
The soldiers accused Suleiman of throwing stones at military vehicles. He sustained serious bruises to his head and back, witnesses said.

Israeli Occupation Soldiers Raid, Shut Down Palestinian School At Gunpoint

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces raided a Palestinian high school in the northern West Bank on Wednesday morning, storming the facility and forcing students to leave at gunpoint while detaining school administrators.Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlement-related activities, told Ma’an that the incident occurred near the villages of al-Lubban and al-Sawiya south of Nablus, both of which are served by the school.

Daghlas said that several Israeli military vehicles stormed the high school and forced the students to flee as they detained the school principal and his assistant.

Daghlas said that the soldiers interrogated the two school administrators and claimed that students from the school had hurled stones at vehicles driven by Israeli settlers on the main road between Nablus and Ramallah.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said that “teenagers were hurling rocks at the roads” and soldiers entered the school as a result in order to “tell them to stop.”

Following the incursion, “they stood outside to ensure they didn’t throw any more rocks,” she added.

In March of last year, Israeli forces also raided the school and forced it to shut down on a similar pretext.

The villages of al-Lubban and al-Sawiya are located directly alongside the main road and are almost completed surrounded by a ring of Jewish-only settlements built on land confiscated from local villages.

The villages are frequently targeted by settlers and the Israeli soldiers that guard them, and the attacks are rarely stopped or punished by authorities.