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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/grim-back-to-school-day-for-hebr.html
By:
Lena Odgaard
posted on
Sunday, Sep 9, 2012
HEBRON — Catching up with friends, showing off new clothes and getting
new books — for most kids, the first day of school is exciting. But for
Palestinian children who live in or go to school in the Old City of
Hebron, the day is nothing to look forward to. Here, crossing
checkpoints manned by heavily armed Israeli soldiers and dodging barbs
and attacks from Israeli settlers are unfortunate parts of an ordinary
school day.
On Sunday morning (Sept. 2) little girls sporting new dresses, shiny
shoes and braided hair, boys in blue shirts, and teenage girls in blue
and white school uniforms flocked to the otherwise usually quiet and
empty Shuhada street in H2. Israel’s military closed all the shops and
sealed off the Old City’s main artery to Palestinian traffic after the
2000 Intifada to avoid recurring clashes between Palestinians and Jewish
settlers — between 600 and 800 live in the midst of 35,000
Palestinians. Only settler vehicles can use that street.
At one of the many checkpoints controlling passage from the Palestinian-managed side of Hebron, known as
H1 to H2,
eight soldiers watched as children, parents and teachers crossed
through the beeping metal detector. An 8-year-old girl walked nervously
through from H1 and started running as soon as she passed the armored
vehicle parked next the checkpoint. A boy, 6, clung to his father’s hand
and kept looking over his shoulder toward the soldiers. A group of 6-
to-12-year-old girls, who reside in H2, ran down the hill toward the
checkpoint while making sure to keep as much distance from the soldiers
as possible. The children were heading for the Cordoba school, which is
the only school still open for Palestinian children in the H2 area.
Monitoring potential rights violations in the highly volatile part of
the city were Chris Cox and Eero Mäntymaa, volunteers with the
international organization EAPPI.
Cox remarked on the soldiers checking the backpacks of even very young
children, even though the school has asked them not to because it
frightens the pupils. Many residents in H2, including children, are used
to crossing checkpoints, but some still react very strongly. Said
Mäntymaa: "Children react how they react, often by crying, and they
remind you that it is not normal to have a gun pointed to your face."
Children face violence from soldiers and settlers
But the children of H2 often face much worse treatment from soldiers. Recent published
testimonies of former Israeli soldiers by Breaking the Silence
reveal a practice of beatings, intimidation and humiliation of
Palestinian children and youth. Accounts by soldiers include conducting
random arrests, leaving boys aged 12-to-14 blindfolded and handcuffed
for hours, and witnessing how kids cry, scream or wet their pants.
Besides the cruel treatment dealt by some soldiers, the Palestinian
children in H2 also face harassment and attacks by settlers.
In a report by the UN's Richard Falk, concern is expressed for the recent surge in settler violence
especially in areas such as Hebron. The report talks of “constant high
tensions between Israeli settlers and the indigenous population,
including young schoolchildren who are often threatened or even
assaulted by Israeli settlers on their way to school.”
Numbers from a
UNICEF-led working group on violations against children
indicate a significant rise in the amount of Palestinian children
injured as a consequence of settler violence in the West Bank: from 29
in 2010 to 41 in 2011 and 21 during the first half of 2012. In 2011 in
Hebron alone, nine children were injured and one was killed. In 2012
seven boys aged 9 to 17 were injured in settler-related incidents. The
numbers only include cases where children required medical treatment and
therefore not minor incidents of attacks and harassment as those often
witnessed by organizations monitoring rights on the ground.
When school becomes a target
In H2, the Palestinian Cordoba School lies on a hill across from the
Jewish settlement of Beit Hadassah. The school’s courtyard is surrounded
by a tall fence and outside the school, a camera records potential
attacks on the school. In the past year, the UNICEF-led working group
has registered incidents of Israeli settlers throwing rocks and bottles
at the school, assaulting teachers and girls on their way home from
school. In June, before the pupils were to take their final exam,
settlers damaged and blocked the main door to the school and tagged the
school’s wall with the words “Death to Arabs” written in Hebrew.
The school has about 150 students and is the only co-coed school in
Hebron. Noura Nasser, the Cordoba school principal, said it used to be
an all-girls school but as pupils were dropping out for fear of being
harassed by soldiers or settlers, the school started accepting boys in
first through sixth grades. Seventh through 10th remain only for girls
as the older boys face more even more problems at the checkpoint and
their families prefer they go to another school outside H2.
Lamya Tamimi, an English teacher at Cordoba School, told
Al-Monitor
that last school year was especially difficult partly due to checkpoint
closures and vandalism by settlers. But she worries especially about
the long-term trauma inflicted on the children by recurring incidents of
violence. This, she said, is reflected in the students’ drawings, which
often feature soldiers and guns, but also in their behavior: “Some
children become more violent and hit the other children. Some are scared
and cry. Others isolate themselves.”...
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