Palestinian parents fear for children's lives at school as settler attacks grow
Fears for children's safety in West Bank school as settler attacks rise On the first day of the new Palestinian school year, the head-teacher of al-Mughayyir boys school arrived at work before dawn, walking past the freshly installed barbed wire fencing and reinforced school gates as the sun began creeping through olive trees around the village, deep inside the occupied West Bank. "We are scared," Bassam al Assaf told me. "The students are afraid, and their parents are afraid." Six people, including three pupils at the school, have been killed in al-Mughayyir this year, in a surge of settler-related violence against Palestinians. One of them, 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan, was shot dead by a settler outside the school gates in April. "I was inside my classroom and two little students came rushing to tell me there were settlers close to the school wall," remembers English teacher Waheed Abu Naem, whose brother Jihad was also killed by an Israeli soldier in the same attack. Since that day, the casualties have grown alongside parents' fears.
The text below was supplied by the Scoop Newsroom app. Third-party reporting is attributed in the source panel.
English teacher Waheed Abu Naem's brother was killed in a shooting outside the school in April The Israeli military said in a statement at the time that stones had been hurled at a car carrying "civilians including a reservist soldier", and that the reservist had got out of the vehicle and fired at suspects. Sami's son, Salim, was shot while playing with friends in July Footage from security cameras at the farm shows Salim pointing, and shouting to his parents that settlers are approaching, before running for shelter with his siblings and mother, as two gunshots are heard.
