Teargas canisters were fired near a West Bank village school on Monday. Children staging an open-air class after settlers blocked the road fled in panic.
What happened in Umm al-Khair
Dozens of Palestinian children and local residents gathered at the entrance to Umm al-Khair, a small village in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern West Bank, on Monday morning to protest a barbed-wire fence that had been erected across the road to their school. The fence, placed by residents of the nearby Carmel settlement, cut off direct access to the school building and prompted an improvised outdoor lesson — a sit-in — while parents and teachers sought a solution.
The scene was supposed to be peaceful. Children sat on the ground holding notebooks. Then the Israeli military was deployed and, according to witnesses and footage shown by Agence France-Presse, teargas canisters were fired into the group. Several small children screamed and ran, parents and neighbours moved to shelter them, and classes were again disrupted on the first day back after an extended closure.
“We were sitting and they threw a grenade [teargas canister] at us. I got scared and started screaming and ran away,” said Sarah al-Hathaleen, a 12-year-old pupil. “I started crying. A woman hugged me and stayed with me.
We were very scared.”
Rashid al-Hathaleen, an 11-year-old, told reporters: “Last night we were excited for school today. The Israelis came and closed the road with barbed wire … we want to be back in school.”
Israel’s military said troops were sent to Umm al-Khair after “reports of an unusual gathering of Palestinians in the area” and that the gathering had been dispersed. The statement said no injuries were reported. Bassam Jabr, the director of education for the Masafer Yatta area, confirmed the sit-in and said residents would continue demonstrations until access was restored.
Why the children were out of class
Students in the area had only just been due to return to lessons after more than 40 days away. Schools in parts of the West Bank were closed after the Israeli–US strike on Iran on 28 February, which heightened tensions across the occupied territories.
Masafer Yatta is a long-standing flashpoint. The area has seen repeated clashes over land, settlement expansion and demolitions. Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist from Umm al-Khair, was killed by a settler in August 2025 — an episode that deepened local fears and mistrust. Settler violence has reportedly increased since the outbreak of the wider Iran war, and access restrictions and fences are one of the tactics that locals say have been used to limit Palestinian movement.
Legal and humanitarian context
The broader backdrop matters here. Excluding East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in West Bank settlements among roughly 3 million Palestinians, according to counts cited in local reporting. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. The presence of settlements, and measures that restrict Palestinian access to land and services, have long been central to disputes over rights, security and education.
Interruptions to schooling cause real harm. For children in remote villages like Umm al-Khair, the school often doubles as a social hub and a rare route out of isolation. When roads are blocked, and improvised measures like open-air lessons are met with dispersal tactics, education is the immediate casualty.
Bassam Jabr painted the situation as one of incremental pressure. He accused settlers from Carmel of trying “to tighten the noose” on local residents by cutting off roads and expanding settlement territory. “Sadly, there are no solutions. We will continue this sit-in today and tomorrow until we find a solution so the students can return to their schools,” he said.
Immediate effects and the response on the ground
Teachers and parents in the area scrambled to keep pupils safe after the canisters were fired. Witness footage showed children running from clouds of gas, adults calling to one another and some people administering aid to those overcome by fumes. Agence France-Presse footage that circulated on Monday captured the chaos and fear that followed the dispersal.
On the official side, the Israeli military rejected claims of wrongdoing, describing the gathering as “unusual” and saying its forces had dispersed it without reporting injuries. Local education authorities, however, stressed that the children were holding a sit-in precisely to demand access to their schoolhouse and to continue lessons despite the blockade.
The clash underlines how everyday conflicts over roads, fences and who controls access translate quickly into humanitarian and educational problems. Parents say the tactics used by settlers and the security responses together limit routine life — from getting to school to tending livestock and reaching medical care — and create a climate of fear.
Wider implications
At a regional level, the incident feeds into a pattern: rising settler incidents and demolitions in Masafer Yatta have been documented repeatedly, and each episode carries political weight. Tensions across the West Bank have intensified since February’s escalation linked to the Israel–US action against Iran. That escalation has coincided with a reported rise in settler violence and heightened military deployments.
For Palestinians in the West Bank, movement restrictions and contested access are a daily reality. What has changed is the frequency and intensity of such confrontations in recent months, and the impact is immediate — children miss school, communities feel besieged, and local officials say they're left with few remedies.
Local leaders promise more sit-ins, but it's unclear if these protests will lead to the fence being removed. durable solution that restores safe passage for pupils. The military’s account that the gathering was dispersed, and its denial of injuries, will be weighed against eyewitness testimony and video footage showing children fleeing a cloud of gas.
What to watch next
For now, parents in Umm al-Khair have vowed to persist with demonstrations until the road is reopened. Schools in the area remain fragile institutions, able to be disrupted by a single fence. Local education officials have said they will continue sit-ins to press the case for students to return to school buildings safely.
Meanwhile, incidents like Monday’s are likely to draw attention from human rights monitors, aid workers and foreign diplomatic missions watching developments in the occupied territories. The combination of settler actions, military responses and repeated interruptions to basic services like education will shape the next round of local grievances and international scrutiny.
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“We will continue this sit-in today and tomorrow until we find a solution so the students can return to their schools,” said Bassam Jabr, director of education for the Masafer Yatta area.
This article was created with AI assistance.
