Israel has repeatedly denied Palestinians permits to build schools in the West Bank and demolished schools built without permits making it more difficult or impossible for thousands of children to get an education Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday.
According to HRW on April 25 2018 Israel’s high court will hold what may be the final hearing on the military’s plans to demolish a school in Khan al-Ahmar Abu al-Hilu a Palestinian community. It is one of the 44 Palestinian schools at risk of full or partial demolition because Israeli authorities say they were built illegally.
The Israeli military refuses to permit most new Palestinian construction in the 60 percent of the West Bank where it has exclusive control over planning and building even as the military facilitates settler construction. The military has enforced this discriminatory system by razing thousands of Palestinian properties including schools creating pressure on Palestinians to leave their communities. When Israeli authorities have demolished schools they have not taken steps to ensure that children in the area have access to schools of at least the same quality.
“Israeli authorities have been getting away for years with demolishing primary schools and preschools in Palestinian communities” said Bill Van Esveld senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military’s refusal to issue building permits and then knocking down schools without permits is discriminatory and violates children’s right to education.”
Israeli military authorities have demolished or confiscated Palestinian school buildings or property in the West Bank at least 16 times since 2010 with 12 incidents since 2016 repeatedly targeting some schools Human Rights Watch found.
Over a third of Palestinian communities in Area C the 60 percent of the West Bank where the Israeli military has exclusive control over building under the 1993 Oslo accords currently do not have primary schools and 10000 children attend school in tents shacks or other structures without heating or air-conditioning according to the UN. About 1700 children had to walk five or more kilometers to school due to road closures lack of passable roads or transportation or other problems according to 2015 UN estimates. The long distances and fear of harassment by settlers or the military lead some parents to take their children out of school with a disproportionate impact on girls.
Most West Bank schools at risk of demolition fall within Area C. Israel justifies its demolition of schools and other Palestinian property there not on security grounds but rather on the grounds that they were built without permits from the military. However the military refuses the vast majority of Palestinian building requests and has zoned only 1 percent of Area C for Palestinian building even as construction proceeds with few constraints in nearby Israeli settlements.
The school demolitions are consistent with other actions that make communities unviable such as home demolitions and the refusal to zone the communities or grant them connections to utilities like water and electricity Human Rights Watch said.
Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office on March 31 2009 Israeli forces have demolished 5351 Palestinian buildings in the West Bank for lack of building permits including East Jerusalem displacing 7988 people including more than 4100 children based on UN data. Israel has not offered resettlement options or compensation to families whose homes were demolished during this period.
Israel’s destruction of Palestinian schools and its failure to replace them violates its obligation as an occupying power to “facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the care and education of children” and violates the prohibition on interfering with the activities of educational institutions or requisitioning their property. International law prohibits an occupying power from destroying property including schools unless “absolutely necessary” for “military operations.” The Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibit widespread unlawful destruction of property as a war crime.
