The village of Al-Mughayer, located northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, is facing a serious escalation in settler attacks directly targeting educational facilities and students. Traditional school walls have proven insufficient to fend off these assaults, prompting the administration of Al-Mughayer School to install high iron fences around classrooms and schoolyards as additional protection.
In the past year, five students from Al-Mughayer School were killed by occupation forces and settlers’ gunfire, pushing the school to adopt extraordinary security measures. Despite these fortifications, a pervasive sense of fear and anxiety persists, as the fences cannot fully shield against bullets or tear gas canisters frequently deployed by settlers.
The educational staff and students endure continuous threats and disruptions, with settlers blocking roads and intercepting vehicles transporting students and teachers, severely impacting the stability of the village’s educational process. Teachers face arduous commutes through numerous military checkpoints and also provide psychological support to students amid daily intimidation attempts.
Teachers escort students when leaving school to prevent exposure to assaults or kidnappings by settler gangs around the area. The education environment in Al-Mughayer is described as one of the most difficult in the region, where each school day becomes a struggle for safety.
This hardship highlights the extent of challenges faced by Palestinians under ongoing settlement expansion policies. Al-Mughayer is surrounded by twelve outposts serving as launching points for attacks against civilians, with students paying a heavy price as half of the village’s recent escalation casualties were young schoolchildren.