Students wounded in Israel attack on Palestinian schools in Hebron

Scores of students and teachers were injured yesterday when Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas near three schools in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, WAFA news agency reported.

Israeli occupation forces walked around three schools, including Tareq Bin Ziad Secondary School, in the southern part of Hebron, in an attempt to provoke the students, the site reported. They then fired tear gas at the schools, causing dozens to suffer suffocation.

Paramedics were sent to the scene and treated the injured at the site.

Tareq Bin Ziad School is one of nine Palestinian schools located in the H2 area of Hebron, which falls under Israel’s civil and military control and remains vulnerable to daily Israeli harassment by settlers and occupation forces.

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School children have to pass through the military checkpoints of Qitoun Checkpoint/209 and Checkpoint 160/29 in the H2 area to access their schools.

The area, which houses 32,000 Palestinians, is considered the most vulnerable to Israeli forces and settler attacks which create a climate of constant fear and terror for students and their teachers.

The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinians and about 800 Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from the heavily armed settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre in the mosque.