Route passes through Jewish settlement
The meeting of Palestinian schoolchildren and Israeli soldiers is not usually friendly, and their interactions often end in violent clashes. But in the hills of southern Hebron, Israeli soldiers walk Palestinian children to and from school every day.
The children live in the Palestinian villages of At-Tuba and Maghayar Al Abeed in the south Hebron hills. To get to At-Tuwani, where the school is located, they need to walk more than four miles, and pass through a Jewish settlement called Havat Maon.
Every morning at 6:30 am, an Israeli soldier driving an army jeep waits for the group of children, usually about a dozen of them, at the eastern gate of the settlement. The schoolchildren walk alongside the jeep until they reach the western gate of the settlement, a journey of about 15 minutes on foot. After leaving the settlement, they finish the journey by themselves. In the afternoon, when school ends at 1 pm, the soldier meets them again, and they do the trip in reverse. The soldier does not leave his jeep unless Jewish settlers threaten the children, either physically or verbally.
“The soldiers are expected to intervene if an incident takes place and to notify the relevant bodies for additional measures to be taken,” an Israeli army spokesman told The Media Line.
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Sometimes the soldiers are late or don’t come, Palestinians say. When that happens, the children take an alternate route through a valley – a journey that takes about two hours.
“Aside from being late or ignoring certain attacks, my biggest fear is trying to cross the flooded valley in the winter time which could add another two hours to my trip as well as making me miss the first three classes of the day,” Yusuf, 13, told The Media Line. He asked that his last name not be used.
Palestinians say that if the soldiers are not there, the children will be attacked. In 2015, Soujud Mahmoud Ibrahim Awad from Touba village was walking with a cousin, bringing food and water to her uncle, who was farming nearby. Masked settlers attacked the two girls with rocks, causing a serious head wound.
“Soujud was in very bad shape and she vomited several times,” Mahmoud Awad, her father, told The Media Line. “She needed six stitches. The police called Soujud and her uncle in to give testimony, but we never heard anything after that.”
Four years earlier, Awad had also been attacked by masked Jewish settlers in the area, who stabbed him in the chest. He was in the hospital for almost two weeks.
A week after that incident, Palestinians filmed Jewish settlers throwing rocks at both Palestinians and foreign activists who were accompanying them. The activists from Ta’aayush called the police, who came but no arrests were made.
There is also a case where soldiers were filmed throwing rocks at Palestinian children. The Israeli army had this response.
“In the case shown in the video, stones were not thrown at Palestinians – it was just a game the soldiers were playing,” the spokesman said. “As soon as the soldiers saw the children they stopped and said hello to the children. Stone throwing is not expected by soldiers on duty. There was an investigation and the soldiers were reprimanded.”
Settlers from Maon did not want to answer questions from The Media Line. In the past they have said that foreign activists provoke them and that Palestinians throw stones at them as well.
When the students finally reach At-Tuwani, they sit in small classrooms that are cold in the winter and stifling in the summer. There is a designated computer room, but no computers, as there is no money to buy them. The school, funded by the European Union (EU) has twelve classrooms for about 120 students in grades 1- 12. By high school, many of the students drop out, trying to earn some money to help their families.
After six hours, it is time to start the trek home. The students leave the school and meet the soldier in his jeep at the settlement. After the escort through the settlement, they continue their walk home.