Israel soldiers attacks school children with tear gas in Hebron

Israeli Occupation troops today attacked Palestinian students on their way to school in Deir Samet village, based in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, reported Wafa news agency.

According to a Wafa correspondent, a group of armed soldiers fired tear gas and concussion bombs around the area and inside the Akka Elementary Co-ed School, causing suffocation cases among dozens of students and staff.

Yasser Saleh, a Palestinian Education Ministry official, confirmed that the teachers managed to guide students into the school and no one was heavily injured.

Akka Elementary Co-ed 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.

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 creates 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.

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