gelatik
04.10.02, 14:30
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, October - Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children
can not attend their regular schools because of Israeli army incursions in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a UNICEF official said Wednesday, October 2.
“Right now the Israeli military is preventing thousands of Palestinian
children and teachers from attending school,” said Pierre Poupard, the
representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the Palestinian
territories.
UNICEF said in a statement that more than 226,000 children and more than
9,300 teachers are “unable to reach their regular classrooms” and at least
580 schools have been closed because of curfews, closures and other measures.
Palestinian children live in constant fear of the Israeli occupation army
Many Palestinian children are now being schooled at home or in makeshift
classrooms such as mosques, basements and alleyways, the statement said,
adding it was difficult to assess the quality of such teaching arrangements.
“Alternative schooling initiatives are an indication of the extent to which
the regular lives of Palestinian children are being devastated by this
conflict,” Poupard said in the UNICEF statement.
UNICEF said that Israel as an occupying power has an obligation to ensure
education is accessible to every Palestinian child, in line with the 4th
Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“As an absolute minimum, mobility restrictions on Palestinian civilians must
be lifted throughout (the occupied Palestinian territories) during school
hours,” it said.
Almost one million Palestinian children are of school age.
Children living in and around the towns of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Hebron
have been most affected after more than three months of Israeli reoccupation
of the West Bank.
In a live dialogue with IslamOnline, Joman Taher Karaman, the Director of
Education in Nablus, said “This scholastic year we have had only two days of
attendance.
“I would like to note that since June 20th, we have been under curfew.
Schools normally used to provide some simple medical care like vaccination in
coordination with the health department, and tests of eye sight. This is no
longer the case,” she said.
