Israeli Forces Block Nearly 80,000 Hebron Students From School

(MENAFN) Nearly 80,000 Palestinian students lost a week of classes as the Israeli siege of Hebron in the occupied West Bank drove 537 families from their homes, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers said Sunday.

In a statement relayed by a Palestinian news agency, the union said closures halted learning at 220 public, private and UN-run schools across the central Hebron education district.

For displaced pupils, the damage goes beyond lost lessons, the union said. Many no longer have their books or a place to study, while teachers are struggling to get to their schools.

On Sunday, Israeli forces also held 10 teachers from the Jinba Basic Mixed School for several hours on the Khallat al-Dabaa Road in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron. Troops stopped the teachers’ vehicle, leaving students waiting and the school day in disarray.

The union denounced the road closures and the detentions of teachers and students as “an assault on the right to education and on people’s lives and dignity.”

It called on education unions worldwide to convert solidarity into pressure on their governments to reopen routes to schools and shield students and teachers. It also urged Education International, a global federation of education unions, to spearhead diplomatic lobbying and dispatch a delegation to Hebron and Masafer Yatta to document the toll.

The Israeli operation reached its 10th straight day Sunday. More than 3,300 Palestinians have been displaced or otherwise affected, particularly in the al-Jalda and Ain Deir Bahha areas, and 15 homes and other structures have been demolished.

Israeli troops have sealed off Hebron and neighboring villages, taking over homes and turning them into military posts. Demolitions and infrastructure damage have further upended daily life.

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