Israeli police confiscate books from Palestinian students at Al-Aqsa

Palestinian secondary school students in Jerusalem have had their textbooks confiscated by Israeli police upon their return from the summer break. Al-Aqsa Secondary School pupils were searched on their way into school, with Israeli officers taking any book that had Palestinian flags on the cover, leaving them without textbooks as the school term begins.

Israeli occupation police forces yesterday confiscated the schoolbooks of Palestinian students while they were heading to their schools in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, Wafa news agency reported.

The Israeli occupation police stopped the children, searched their school bags and seized the books which were issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and which comply with the Palestinian curriculum. They claimed the books included the Palestinian flag.

Last week police seized school books of students who attend private schools in the Old City and arrested the driver who was delivering the textbooks and a school employee.

Palestinian Foreign ministry condemned the confiscation of books as a new racist attack on Palestinian schools and curricula, stressing the right of people under occupation to choose their own curricula according to what is guaranteed to them by international conventions.

For years, Israel has been trying to prevent Palestinian children in Jerusalem from following the Palestinian curriculum, claiming they must follow the Israeli curriculum, which provides a distorted view of Israel’s illegal occupation of their land.

READ: Islamic Jihad calls on Palestinians in Israel to stop crimes, confront occupation

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.