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Israel activists protest pending Palestinian school demolition outside Supreme Court

July 11, 2018 at 2:11 pm

Anti-occupation activists brought 174 school backpacks to Israel’s Supreme Court to symbolize the 174 children who would lose their school if the Israeli army destroys Khan Al-Ahmar, a Palestinian Bedouin Village [Facebook/All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective]

As Israeli authorities prepare to demolish Palestinian village Khan Al-Ahmar, including a school, Israeli activists yesterday protested outside the Supreme Court, laying out 174 backpacks for every student who studies at the school slated for destruction.

According to +972 Magazine, “a group of Israeli and foreign Jewish activists” were responsible for the action, which was organised by All That’s Left, “a collective of anti-occupation activists living in Israel-Palestine”.

“The school, built in 2009 out of mud, tyres, and clay with the help of an Italian NGO that specialises in ecological structures, serves the Bedouin Palestinian population in the area. Just a month after it opened, the Israeli army ordered it demolished,” the report noted.

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Abby Kirschbaum, from All That’s Left, said: “Everyone can relate to carrying their backpack to school, and we wanted to use an image that shows that these children are real people.”

“The backpack is a tool of humanisation.”

“The activists are planning on donating a portion of the backpacks to the children of the Khan Al-Ahmar, complete with a care package,” the report added.

Members of All That’s Left “are among a number of solidarity activists — Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals — who have been spending time in Khan Al-Ahmar over the past few weeks, many of them sleeping in the school’s courtyard, in the run-up to the demolition.”