<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="MainContentdiv in-print">
<h1 class="title">Israel seizes mobile classrooms in Palestinian
village the day before school</h1>
<div style="margin: 5px 0 10px 0;">
<div class="stamp">Aug. 23, 2017 - <font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778812">http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778812</a></font><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="BodyDiv">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) --
Days after residents in an isolated Bethlehem-area village
received stop-work orders for mobile homes being set up as a
school -- structures for which locals insisted they had
obtained the necessary permits -- Israeli forces reportedly
raided the village Tuesday and seized the classrooms.<br>
<br>
</span>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">The raid into Jubbet
al-Dib came a day before the first day of the school year,
leaving some 64 students from the 1st to 4th grade without a
school to attend on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority-owned
Wafa news agency reported.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Wafa quoted local
activist Hasan Breijieh as saying that Israeli forces hauled
the mobile classrooms on trucks and took them away under the
pretext they were established without Israeli permission.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Locals reportedly
attempted to block the confiscation of the classrooms, which
Breijieh reiterated were licensed. Israeli soldiers fired tear
gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at the residents
to disperse them, without causing any injury, according to
Wafa.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Sami Marwa, director of
the education department in Bethlehem, told the news agency
that the school was set up to serve several small communities
in the area, and had enrolled 64 students.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">He said teachers and
staff had been preparing for the first day of school since
Sunday. The school consisted of eight mobile homes, Brejiyeh
told Ma’an <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778730"
style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">when the
stop-work orders were delivered</a>, when Israeli forces
also confiscated vehicles donated by an Italian NGO.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">After the classrooms
were hauled away, the Palestinian Ministry of Education
started seeking an alternative school for the children to
attend, Wafa said.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">The Norwegian Refugee
Council released a statement later Wednesday condemning Israel
for the confiscation as part of "<span style="font-size:
14.6667px;">a wider attack on education in Palestine."<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"></span><span
style="font-size: 11pt;">NRC Policy Manager Itay Epshtain,
who visited Jubbet al-Dhib this morning, was quoted in the
statement as saying, “It was heart breaking to see children
and their teachers turning up for their first day of school
under the blazing sun, with no classrooms or anywhere to
seek shelter in, while in the immediate vicinity the work to
expand illegal settlements goes on uninterrupted.”</span><span
style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
<br>
According to NRC, some 55 schools in the occupied West Bank
are threatened with demolition and stop-work orders by
Israeli authorities, many of them built with funding from
the European Union states and other donors. <br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">"In the first three
months of this year there were 24 cases of direct attacks
against schools, including incidents where tear gas
canisters and sound bombs were fired at students on their
way to or from school.<br>
<br>
Last year, four communities’ educational facilities were
demolished or confiscated and 256 education-related
violations were documented in the West Bank, affecting over
29,000 students," NRC's statement said.<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Just when they were due
to return to the classroom, Palestinian children are
discovering that their schools are being destroyed,” NRC
Country Director for Palestine, Hanibal Abiy Worku, said.<br>
<br>
“What threat do these schools pose to the Israeli
authorities? What are they planning to achieve by denying
thousands of children their fundamental right to education?”<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“We call on the
governments and donors funding Palestinian children’s
education to exercise all of their influence to prevent this
violation in all its forms,” Abiy Worku said. <br>
<br>
“The destruction of educational structures funded by
European money is not just a violation of international law.
It is also a slap in the face to the international community
providing aid to the occupied Palestinian population in a
bid to ensure safe places of learning for children.”<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Meanwhile, a
spokesperson for the Israeli civil administration contested
last Thursday that the structures had not received the
necessary permits, and that the construction was "illegal."<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">When a spokesperson was
contacted again for comment on Wednesday following the
confiscation and repeated claims from locals that the
structures were licensed, they said that the building was "<span
style="font-size: 11pt;">a blunt violation of stop work
orders" and had not received permits. <br>
<br>
"Therefore, the confiscation was carried out in accordance
to the Civil Administrations authorities."<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size:
11pt;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Palestinians living in
Area C -- the more than 60 percent of the West Bank under full
Israeli military control -- must apply for construction
permits with the Israeli civil administration for any kind of
development on their lands. However, oftentimes these requests
are denied and the application process can be lengthy and
expensive.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Israeli forces<a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777828"
style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">
confiscated solar panels</a> in Jubbet al-Dhib last month
that were installed last year with funding from the Dutch
government, under the pretext that they were built without
permits.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Rights groups have
highlighted that Israel’s permit system in Area C has served
to limit Palestinian construction in Israeli-controlled areas
of the Palestinian territory, where the land is reoriented for
the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements or for other
purposes serving the Israeli government or settlers.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Some 150 Palestinians
reside in Jubbet al-Dhib, which is neighbored by the illegal
Noqedim settlement -- home to Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman -- as well as the illegal El David settlement, in
addition a number of Israeli outposts, that, despite being
illegal even under Israeli domestic law, are connected to the
power grid and other infrastructure.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">Meanwhile,
approximately 1.25 million schoolchildren started the new
school year in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip
after the summer holiday ended.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;">The incident in Jubbet
al-Dhib came amid a series of o<span style="font-size: 11pt;">bstacles
facing Palestinians on the occasion of the first day of
school.<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size:
11pt;"></span></div>
<div style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size:
11pt;">Another school, a </span><span style="font-family:
Helvetica; font-size: 14.6667px;">kindergarten</span><span
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">,<a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778784"
target="_blank"> was demolished </a>in the Bedouin
community of Jabal al-Baba on August 21.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size:
11pt;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size:
11pt;">Israeli police stationed in the Old City of occupied
East Jerusalem<a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778801"
target="_blank"> prevented 100 textbooks being delivered
to schools</a> located inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
on Tuesday.<br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size:
11pt;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt;"><span
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">On
Wednesday, the mayor of Hebron was</span><a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778816"
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; font-style:
normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps:
normal; font-weight: normal;" target="_blank"> verbally
assaulted and threatened by Israeli settlers, </a><span
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">as the
mayor attempted to visit schools inside the Old City to </span><span
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.6667px;">inaugurate</span><span
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"> the first
day of school. He was eventually evacuated from the area by
Israeli soldiers.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>