In this picture, you can see a group of children walking to school. Their path is hedged in by settlements on both sides.
You can see a settler standing by his car, watching the kids. Sometimes the settlers harass the children.
Hence the presence of the army jeep behind the schoolchildren. International and Israeli activists try to be present as well at these sensitive points.
Unfortunately, there are many places in the Occupied West Bank where Palestinian kids walking to school have to be protected from settlers and the army.
So what's the story here?
These children are walking from their homes in Tuba and other locations in the firing zone (see map) to Tuwani, along the road that traditionally linked the villages.
The illegal settlers started arriving in the 1980's and have claimed the road as their own, frequently attacking any others who use it. So Palestinians have to drive the long way round to get from Tuba to Tuwani. This involves going through Ma'on Junction with its turrets and possible checkpoints.
Things took a dramatic turn for the worse at the time of the Second Intifada and the kids were attacked regularly. International peacekeeping groups and Israeli activists would accompany the schoolchildren to protect them from the violence of the illegal settlers. People were injured, but at last - once the rabid colonists had beaten up some American activists badly enough to send them to hospital - the authorities intervened. They ordered the army to follow the children.
This has been going on for around 20 years. The soldiers are unhappy with their task, they feel they have better things to do. They tell the kids that ....the military vehicles are there to protect the settlers from the schoolchildren.
This last detail is absurd to any outside observer, but I believe that it serves to highlight the sense of paranoia that I feel coming from the occupiers. Their narrative of child terrorists and suicide bombers justifies and renders necessary the constant onslaught on a civilian population.
As I write this, the media is saying that the soldier who shot and killed two-year-old Mohammed al-Tamimi got off
scot-free because he thought ... that the child was a fleeing gunman. (aljazeera)
One of the guys who talked to me about growing up like this calls the environment "devastating". For him the psychological impact was the worst part.
My initial reaction was one of irritation and incomprehension - this doesn't make sense!
When you do the school run, you have to be up on the road at 7.20. On my first day this meant waiting in an unpleasant drizzle for the army to turn up. We had to wait a bit, but these kids waste infinitely more time due to this system. So we'd been messaging other internationals in the area, coordianation was in place, we knew what to do and who to call if the soldiers were late. No probs, it all went fine. A bit of a let-down really. Half a dozen adults in Tuwani, and a military escort which would be the envy of a government minister is many countries, just for 5 wee kiddies. Put them on a bus, for crying out loud! Better yet, put the settlers in jail!
Rumour has it that the thugs on the Ma'on colony and outpost are all ex-cons anyway. Whatever the truth of that, they are untouchable, useful as they are to the Zionist effort to take over Masafer Yatta. Anyone wanting to look at how the illegal settlers are invulnerable can look at what happened when they organised the pogrom in Huwara, that investigation is currently being published: "CNN slams IDF..."
And a bus is impossible: like roads, electricity and water, public services and infrastructure must be denied to the inhabitants in order to push them out. And when we grasp that, I think, we come to understand the logic of the "school run". Constant tension due to the risk of violence; harassment; a drain on time and resources and energy... this situation, which seems grotesquely stupid and injust in a modern society, is sustained as a psychological weapon in the process of ethnic cleansing.
#ongoingnakba
Don't just take my word for it - background:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/al-tuwani-childrens-struggle-go-school/9238
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6746246
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