‘Our aim is that children are protected’: besieged West Bank school fortifies its defences against settler violence- After deaths of five students at hands of Israeli settlers in last academic year, al-Mughayyir’s teachers and pupils are on high alert

Children watch Israeli security forces deploying in al-Mughayyir on 29 September, when dozens of settlers from hilltop outposts raided the village, leaving at least five burnt-out cars. Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

 

William Christou and Sufian Abu Taha in al-Mughayyir

Tue 3 Nov 2026

This year, parents in al-Mughayyir had to be persuaded to send their children back to school. Israeli settlers had killed five teenage students last academic year – one of them at the school gates.

To reassure parents, teachers of the public secondary school gave a tour of the facilities, which they had spent the summer break fortifying. Metal fences now towered over the schoolyard’s walls and the door had been replaced by a sturdy metal gate. A new wall shielded the classrooms from a hilltop where last academic year a settler had shot dead two people, including a student.

Al-Mughayyir, a town of about 3,000 people north-east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, is under a siege by Israeli settlers. Armed settlers regularly raid the village, assaulting residents, attacking homes and seizing livestock. Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints that prevent people from entering or leaving for hours at a time.

The school is isolated on the very edge of the village, close to its entrance. Settlers stage their raids around the school, attacking under the watchful eye of the Israeli military.

A single Israeli soldier stands at the entrance of the village, his rifle slung over his shoulder as he paces back and forth idly. It is he who decides who can come and go in the village. The excited shouting of schoolchildren playing can be heard from where he stands; the children’s voices echo across the otherwise quiet village, most shops shuttered despite it being a weekday.

Residents say the violence is part of a wider project to displace Palestinians from their land, one that has already driven smaller communities from their homes. Now, they fear the same tactics are being turned against an entire village in an attempt to make life so intolerable that residents leave.

“When the settlers began their attacks, they began in the Jordan valley area, displacing communities of farmers consisting of 10, 20 people. Now, they are trying to displace entire villages. What’s happening in al-Mughayyir is the beginning of this project,” said Ameen Abu Alia, the 54-year-old mayor of the town... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/nov/03/our-aim-is-that-children-are-protected-besieged-west-bank-school-fortifies-its-defences-against-settler-violence

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"It is shameful that the world failed to prevent genocide, failed to shelter Gaza's civilians from Israel's bombs, and is now failing even to lift the blockade on basic supplies that would protect children and their families as rain floods the camps of displaced people across Gaza." Husam Zomlot

Heavy rain causes flooding in many parts of Gaza with nearly 70,000 tents damaged.  

https://x.com/Palestine_in_UK/status/2119005207581327825/photo/3

Husam Zomlot 

 Ambassador of the State of Palestine to the UK

& Former Ambassdor to the United States.

@hzomlot

 

Nov 7, 2026

It is shameful that the world failed to prevent genocide, failed to shelter Gaza's civilians from Israel's bombs, and is now failing even to lift the blockade on basic supplies that would protect children and their families as rain floods the camps of displaced people across Gaza.

 

https://x.com/hzomlot/status/2119042548396122142

 

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A year after the ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza, this is what our lives look like: no privacy, no peace. I look at myself and my neighbours queueing for water, and dream of a lost normality. We are now strangers even to ourselves

Two girls walk past collapsed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 25 August 2026. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

Gaza

Tue 27 Oct 2026

Akram Al-Sourani

Every morning, I look at myself and my neighbours standing in the queue for water, and remember how each of us once had a life of our own, our privacy, our own toothbrush, our own home and our own bathroom. How we used to wash our faces and drink clean water without ever imagining that a day would come when these simple routines would become a battle with ourselves and with every drop of water. Even standing beneath a hot shower has become a dream postponed until further notice.

A year has passed since the announcement of the “ceasefire” in Gaza, yet the spectre of war, bombardment and death has never left our lives.

War is not simply the bombing of buildings or the evacuation of a residential neighbourhood. There are small wars inside this one enormous war. The tent is a war. The surveillance drone – the zannana, as we call it, for its incessant buzzing – is a war. Queueing for water is a war. Waiting to use the toilet is a war. The death of privacy is a war. Thirty people crammed into a single room is a war.

Every morning, the same question follows me: what will happen today? Will my children return from what remains of their school to what remains of our home, having walked along what remains of a street, when bombardment could take them from me at any moment?

They walk long distances because transport is difficult and expensive amid fuel shortages, repeated border crossing closures and the trickle of essential supplies into Gaza. It is as though life itself is being rationed to us, drop by drop.

In Gaza, waking up alive is not enough. You must also make sure that the place where you slept is still somewhere you can spend the following night. You must hope that your children can dream of an ordinary day – one in which obtaining a loaf of bread, an education or medical treatment is not an achievement worthy of celebration.

It is as though the ceasefire never happened. The sounds of bombardment, explosions and surveillance drones have continued to accompany our days and nights. What remains of our homes and tents trembles – and so do our hearts.

In Gaza, to be alive is to live on the edge of death... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/27/gaza-peace-lives-year-ceasefire-water

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"In its official comments, the Israeli army had said that the displaced [Palestinian] population had left voluntarily, that “civilians who wished to evacuate were permitted to temporarily leave the area”. Ahmaro was outraged at the suggestion that he had any choice about fleeing. “Never, never, never. Why should I leave my house?” he asked."

Guardian graphic. Source: Peace Now

 

... Within hours, the whole city of 250,000 people had been sealed off [by Israeli forces] and the neighbourhood of Farsh al-Hawa [Palestine], closest to the site of Friday’s attack [on Israeli forces at one of the many Israeli checkpoint chokeholds on Palestine], had been flattened. By Sunday morning, there was nothing left but rubble of an industrial area that had been full of car workshops, a big ceramics plant and other enterprises.

As the bulldozers were at work there, another district a few kilometres away was being systematically emptied. Ein Deir Baha was allegedly home to at least one of the two men involved in the attack (both of whom were killed on the spot), and on Friday its residents paid the price.

Fahed Ahmaro, who was forced to flee his home in the Deir Baha area of Hebron by Israeli security forces, looks at his house from a distance. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

 

The imam from the local mosque, Fahed Ahmaro, was woken at about midnight by the loudspeakers from military vehicles patrolling the street, telling [Palestinian] homeowners to vacate their homes immediately for their own safety.

Ahmaro had 30 members of his family living in his house. He rushed his frail mother and some of his grandchildren to his daughter’s house in another part of Hebron, and was on his way back in the hope of picking up some of his possessions when his neighbour phoned him.

“He told me not to come back, and the [Israeli] army had blown up the gates to the house. I don’t know what they have done to it by now. I heard they destroyed the furniture,” Ahmaro said. “You don’t know what you have until you lose it. Now I realise how devastating it is to lose your home.”

At midday on Sunday, he was in a Hebron market shopping for a change of clothes for his grandchildren, uncertain how long the family’s exile would last.

He had heard that the house was being used as a base by Israeli soldiers and looking up at the house, perched on the side of a steep hill, he could see some lights on but no sign of life.

The Hebron municipality said that 370 families, nearly 2,000 people, had been displaced by the army sweep through Ein Deir Baha. In its official comments, the Israeli army had said that the displaced population had left voluntarily, that “civilians who wished to evacuate were permitted to temporarily leave the area”.

Ahmaro was outraged at the suggestion that he had any choice about fleeing.

“Never, never, never. Why should I leave my house?” he asked.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/26/collective-punishment-palestinians-displaced-israeli-forces-take-over-hebron-homes

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Israeli soldiers raze neighbourhood in Hebron, driving families from homes

PM Benjamin Netanyahu vows ‘to destroy this place’ in retaliation for militant attack on army checkpoinks

Israeli troops have levelled a neighbourhood in Hebron, driving out hundreds of families in collective punishment for a militant attack on an army checkpoint outside the West Bank city, local Palestinian authorities said.

The Hebron municipality estimated that 35 hectares (86 acres) had been destroyed or marked for destruction and about 1,500 people had been evicted from their homes by Saturday afternoon in the district of Ein Deir Baha. The whole city of 250,000 people was sealed off by checkpoints on every point of entry.

Videos sent by a Hebron resident showed a substantial area of devastation with every house over several blocks flattened in an urban area. One video showed soldiers marking Palestinian houses with a sprayed black cross, another showed a bulldozer tearing down a stone wall on a hillside and another showed a large residential building festooned with Israeli flags... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/24/israel-soldiers-raze-west-bank-neighbourhood-hebron-families-from-homes

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Visualizing Palestine @visualizingpal Our latest highlights key findings from Francesca Albanese’s report, “Truth Under the Rubble: Media in the Time of Genocide”, exposing the systemic silencing of Palestinian journalists & the suppression of truth. Reshare to amplify findings & demand press freedom & accountability

Visualizing Palestine

@visualizingpal

 

Our latest highlights key findings from Francesca Albanese’s report, “Truth Under the Rubble: Media in the Time of Genocide”, exposing the systemic silencing of Palestinian journalists & the suppression of truth. Reshare to amplify findings & demand press freedom & accountability

 https://x.com/visualizingpal/status/2114636303362855226

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Truth under the rubble [of Palestine]: MEDIA in the time of [Israeli made] GENOCIDE

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967- Francesca Albanese

 https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/2114483869533823405/photo/1

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/a81249-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-palestinian 

Published

09 October 2026

UN symbol

A/81/249

Summary

This report examines how the destruction of truth has become integral to the destruction of a people. It identifies three interconnected patterns: the elimination of Palestinian media workers – through killing, maiming, arbitrary detention, torture, intimidation and the systematic labelling of them as “terrorists” – to suppress the documentation of crimes; the construction of an information regime in Israel through media restrictions, censorship, propaganda, hate speech, genocidal incitement and denial; and the role of influential international media and digital platforms in marginalizing Palestinian voices and reproducing Israeli narratives, normalizing legal distortions, which ultimately legitimized atrocities. Together, these practices have not merely accompanied genocide but have facilitated its commission and obstructed accountability. Some aspects of this assault on truth might be described as “mediacide”.

Issued By:

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967

Delivered To:

General Assembly - eighty-first session

Versions

See available official languages

See also

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967

Tags

• Palestine

• Genocide 

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https://docs.un.org/en/A/81/249 

...READ MORE

Israeli authorities have severed Hebron from the rest of the occupied West Bank, sealing the governorate behind 106 iron gates and blocking 16 major access roads with earth mounds.

Israeli authorities have severed Hebron from the rest of the occupied West Bank, sealing the governorate behind 106 iron gates and blocking 16 major access roads with earth mounds.

 The Cradle

@TheCradleMedia

Israel seals Hebron with 106 iron gates and moves to annex Ibrahimi Mosque amid West Bank siege —— 

 

Israeli authorities have severed Hebron from the rest of the occupied West Bank, sealing the governorate behind 106 iron gates and blocking 16 major access roads with earth mounds. 

 

Hebron Governor Khaled Dodin revealed during a press conference that the sweeping military closure serves as a physical framework for the systematic annexation of the historic Ibrahimi Mosque, according to Anadolu Agency. 

 

Occupation forces have advanced unauthorized construction on the sanctuary's roof while seizing municipal infrastructure, water networks, and electrical controls. 

 

The administrative takeover was codified when Tel Aviv stripped the Hebron Municipality of its legal management powers, transferring jurisdiction directly to the nearby illegal Kiryat Arba settlement. 

 

Palestinian officials denounced the move as a flagrant assault on the historical status quo of the holy site, noting that occupation forces have banned the Muslim call to prayer for ten consecutive days and barred local worshippers. 

 

The siege on the sanctuary unfolds alongside a broader colonial land grab that has seen the establishment of over 20 new illegal settlement outposts and more than 700 recorded occupation and settler attacks across the governorate.

 

https://x.com/TheCradleMedia/status/2113939743679332534 

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Israeli settler terrorists are attacking the Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, blocking its entrance and preventing residents from entering or leaving the town

Ihab Hassan

@IhabHassane

 

BREAKING: Israeli settler terrorists are attacking the Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, blocking its entrance and preventing residents from entering or leaving the town.  https://x.com/IhabHassane/status/1979953695962874182

William Dalrymple

 

@DalrympleWill

 

I've spent time in the wonderful Christian village of Taybeh on the West Bank, which was again attacked by Israeli Settlers this weekend. This was my report for @nybooks : Disappearing Christians | William Dalrymple | The New York Review of Books https://share.google/pUYAPvG2zDRkmf

September 25, 2003 issue 

Disappearing Christians

William Dalrymple

 

“The first thing that you notice about Taybeh as you drive in is that the village is full of churches: it is in fact one of the last villages around here still dominated by Palestinian Christians.”

Taybeh is a small Palestinian village in the West Bank, ten miles northwest of Jerusalem. The farmhouses that you pass on the road there, the domes of the abandoned caravanserai, the minarets of Ottoman mosques—all are built of honey-colored limestone which changes tone according to the color of the sky. Shepherd boys lead their flocks down steep olive slopes into the strip fields of the valleys; it could almost be Tuscany. Only the concrete phalanx of fast-expanding Israeli settlements on the hilltops reminds you where you are, and brings you back to the tensions and violence that are inescapable here. With their towering cranes and half-built apartment blocks and long lines of solar panels glinting on their roofs, the settlements are surrounded by swarms of yellow bulldozers ripping through the ancient landscape. At the settlement gates sit nests of razor wire, the fortified emplacements of the Israeli army.  https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/09/25/disappearing-christians/

 

From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East

by William Dalrymple (Author) 

 

William Dalrymple sets off to retrace their footsteps

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