At least five pupils at a village school in the West Bank have been killed in the last year by settlers and soldiers. Emma Graham-Harrison reports on how the school found itself on the frontline, while a teacher explains what life is like for staff and students.
Waheed Abu Naim is an English teacher at the Al Mughayyir boys’ school in a village in the West Bank. He loves his job, he says. “I am happy to be a teacher. Although we don’t get lots of money, because my students, especially in the morning, wait for me when I enter the school to shake hands, to smile at me while going inside their classes. So it’s a happy life.”
But the last year has been anything but happy for Waheed. His village is now surrounded by settlers, while the military has blocked off every road except one, which has a checkpoint on it. Teachers who live in neighbouring villages cannot always come to work. But worse are the attacks on the village by settlers.
In April, a 14-year-old pupil was killed next to a playground gate after a gunman opened fire. As Waheed rushed the teenager to hospital he learned his own brother had also been killed.
Senior Middle East correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison tells Annie Kelly: “We’ve documented the hundreds of children who’ve been killed by Israeli soldiers, settlers over the last three years. But even in that context, of sort-of regular deadly violence, there is something particularly horrific about someone taking aim at a school full of children.”
Four other students were also killed and, says Emma, things don’t seem to be getting better. “In the next few months I’m just, very unfortunately, expecting to see at least the same level of violence and frankly, probably an escalation.”