West Bank school builds fences and walls after settlers kill five pupils
Teachers at the public secondary school in al-Mughayyir spent the summer adding metal fences, a metal gate and a new wall, The Guardian reported. Israeli settlers killed five of its teenage students last academic year, one at the school gates.
Parents in al-Mughayyir, a town in the occupied West Bank, had to be persuaded to send their children back to school this year, The Guardian reported. To reassure them, teachers gave tours of the fortified buildings. Tall metal fences now rise above the schoolyard walls. A sturdy metal gate has replaced the old door. A new wall also shields the classrooms from a hilltop. According to The Guardian, a settler shot dead two people there last academic year, one of them a student. The school sits on the edge of the village, near its entrance. The newspaper reported that settlers stage raids around it while the Israeli military watches. Al-Mughayyir has about 3,000 people and lies north-east of Ramallah. The Guardian describes it as under siege by Israeli settlers. Armed settlers regularly raid the village, assault residents, attack homes and seize livestock. Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints that stop people entering or leaving for hours at a time. Mayor Ameen Abu Alia, 54, said the number of settler outposts around the town has grown from one in 2023 to 12 now. He said settlers first displaced small farming communities in the Jordan valley. Now, he said, they are trying to push out entire villages. "What's happening in al-Mughayyir is the beginning of this project,"…
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