AL-KHALIL (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Jewish settlers destroyed Zanuta School in southern Al-Khalil on Sunday while Israeli occupation forces (IOF) issued demolition orders against water wells and agricultural rooms south of Al-Khalil City.
Zanuta Mixed Elementary School is one of the “Sumud and Challenge” schools located east of the town of Ad-Dhahiriya, south of Al-Khalil. Eyewitnesses reported that settlers attacked the school and stole its contents.
Fayez Al-Tal, head of the Zanuta village council, said that a number of settlers destroyed the parts of the school that had been restored with the participation of the village council and the local residents, in preparation for welcoming students back to class.
He explained that the settlers stole iron doors from the classrooms, panelite boards, and partitions between classrooms before destroying the school.
He noted that settlers have attacked and destroyed the school several times, and have worked to forcibly displace the village residents by destroying their homes, assaulting them, and targeting their properties.
In November 2023, settlers burned and destroyed the school after repeated attacks forced more than 250 villagers to abandon their homes and lands and leave forcibly on October 28, 2023.
Meanwhile, Rateb Al-Jabour, coordinator of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Committees, reported that the IOF issued three demolition orders in the Hawara area northeast of Yatta city in Al-Khalil governorate.
The IOF had previously demolished several structures before the expiration of the specified deadlines, aiming to push citizens into leaving their lands forcibly for the benefit of settlement expansion.
Parallel to the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army and settlers have intensified their attacks in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 956 people and the injury of nearly 7,000 others, in addition to 16,400 documented cases of arrest, according to Palestinian data.
With full US support, Israel has been committing a genocide in Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 169,000 Palestinians either martyred or wounded — most of them children and women — along with over 11,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that has killed dozens of children and elderly people, in what is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
