Farah, Mohammed and Jawad are getting ready for the new school year in Masafer Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank.
The children, aged 17, 8, and 7 respectively, attend Shaab al-Butum school in a village with the same name. But the building they’ll return to will be missing two administrative rooms and a storage room after Israeli forces demolished them on August 4.
According to the United Nations, Israel justified the demolitions by saying that the structures were constructed without Israeli-issued building permits. These are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain in the Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under Israeli administrative and military control.
The rest of the school isn’t safe either – it has also been threatened with demolition, with a court case scheduled for September 15.
The children’s return to education is now uncertain, as they worry about losing the village’s only school completely, and more confrontations with Israeli forces.
Constant fear
The start of the academic year at the beginning of September is supposed to mean a return to learning, but enthusiasm in Shaab al-Butum has now been mixed with anxiety.
Farah explained to Al Jazeera that the school was the only one she had ever attended, and was fearful about what would now happen.
Mohammed echoed that fear and said that he was worried Israeli forces would “return to demolish what remains” of the school. Jawad, meanwhile, spoke of his sadness at seeing the school damaged and said he hoped it could “return as it was”.
For Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta local council, those concerns reflect a much wider threat facing education across the area, which has repeatedly been targeted by the Israeli state and settlers over the years. Masafer Yatta was declared part of a closed Israeli military firing zone in the 1980s, which has been used as justification in repeated attempts to force local Palestinians out.
“It is a test renewed with every school year, amidst unprecedented escalation by the occupation authorities,” Younis told Al Jazeera.
“This year comes amid the tightening of the occupation’s policy of demolishing schools, and rampant settler violence that targets everything in these villages,” he added.
That violence, Younis said, follows children throughout their daily lives, targeting “students going to their schools, students while in class, and even inside the home”.
According to Younis, all seven schools in the wider Masafer Yatta area are now threatened with demolition.
“We do not know whether these schools will survive to the end of this academic year, let alone still be standing when the next one begins,” he said, stressing the determination of local Palestinians to stay “despite the pain and [Israeli] barbarism”.
Settler violence
Activist and teacher Tariq Hathaleen said the uncertainty surrounding demolitions, coupled with the continued expansion of settlement outposts, had deepened the sense of insecurity among residents.
“The occupation authorities do not usually tell the residents or the school administration in advance when the bulldozers will arrive,” Hathaleen told Al Jazeera.
Hathaleen added that settlers had stormed Ras Ein al-Auja school in the Jordan Valley the previous academic year, assaulting staff and students.
The attack and the demolition confirmed that schools are “no longer immune from attack”, Hathaleen said.
“[Israel’s actions] do not target merely one aspect, but affects education, housing, freedom of movement and livelihoods,” Hathaleen explained.
Hathaleen described the targeted schools – built by the Palestinian Ministry of Education to serve marginalised areas – as “more than just educational buildings”.
Systematic pattern
Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscore the scale of the threat, with 84 Palestinian schools serving nearly 13,000 students currently facing Israeli demolition or stop-work orders.
Amir Dawoud, a senior official with the commission, said the schools facing the most immediate legal threats were concentrated in the southern Hebron area, particularly Masafer Yatta, as well as at al-Walaja school near Bethlehem, which Israel says lacks a building permit.
“These are not schools that can simply be closed and their students easily transferred elsewhere,” Dawoud told Al Jazeera.
The impact of demolition orders, he said, begins long before any building is actually destroyed, creating uncertainty and disruption for students, teachers, and their families.
“The psychological and educational impact begins before the bulldozer arrives,” he said.
“It is a systematic pattern that transcends individual cases,” Dawoud added, noting that it starts with planning restrictions, accompanied by road restrictions and settler attacks.
“It does not only threaten school buildings,” he said. “It targets the ability of Palestinian communities to survive.”
