Palestine

Please pray for the Palestinian children as they start school and must pass through these checkpoints daily. Pray for the principals and teachers who accompany their students through these traumatic events, and pray for the families who worry about their children.

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres made a statement on the global education situation earlier this month. The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly further disrupted learning, but Guterres notes that “a learning crisis existed even before the pandemic, as more than 250 million children were out of school.” The UN estimates that the pandemic has affected more than one billion students worldwide. Palestinian students face not only the pandemic but also the Israeli occupation on their way to schools. Even though the number of violations against Palestinian children recorded might be lower this year, students in H2 still have to pass several Israeli Military checkpoints to go to school which violates the Human Rights Act part 10 article 19 that protects children from all forms of abuse and maltreatment.

Abed Al-Kareem, 11 years old, was in 5th grade when he started at al Khalil school in Hebron H2. His teacher told us that he is an intelligent student and was doing great when he started. But his performance started to decline, and eventually, he did not even show up for the final exams. Why would this happen for a child who was really studious? The answer is not simple.

Monitoring human rights is not an easy duty especially for Palestinians as they are subjected to harassment and difficulties from the Israeli soldiers serving at the checkpoints or the Israeli settlers who consider human rights monitors as a threat. Here are some testimonies from CPTers facing constant harassment from soldiers and settlers while crossing the checkpoints or on the way to the field.

Books, pencils, notebooks, and sometimes toys are what you’ll find in a child's bag. But Israeli occupation soldiers have vilified these bags to harass, oppress, and accuse children—or even arrest them—without any reason. Children in the H2 area of Hebron are at the mercy of the checkpoints. They must be careful about their behaviour, what they carry in their bag, and how soldiers might interpret the contents during a bag search. 15-year-old Mira* said: “When I leave home, I don’t want anyone to check my bag because this is the only thing I have that is private, and I don’t like to let anyone look at it.”

Pray for the Palestinian prisoner Iyad Hriebat, who is paralyzed and suffers from amnesia after the Israeli occupation gave him a strange injection while in prison. He was arrested in 2002, transferred between several prisons of the occupation and subjected to solitary confinement. Israeli authorities did not give his family any information about his whereabouts until two years after his arrest. They then prevented them from visiting Iyad until after his sentencing to life and 20 years in prison.