World News
East Jerusalem private and Christian schools strike over curriculum rules and teacher permit bans
A new strike has halted the school year for tens of thousands of Palestinian students as Israel enforces its curriculum and blocks West Bank educators.
The short version
- Private and Christian schools in East Jerusalem launched an open-ended strike on Tuesday, the first day of the academic year.
- The protest follows Israel's refusal to renew entry permits for dozens of West Bank teachers and its enforcement of the Israeli curriculum in first- and seventh-grade classes.
- The disruptions affect more than 45,000 Palestinian students amid an ongoing staffing crisis driven by recent Israeli legislative restrictions.
Key facts
- Private and Christian schools in East Jerusalem declared an indefinite strike on Tuesday, protesting Israeli curriculum enforcement and educator entry bans.[Al Jazeera]
- Israel has required all new first- and seventh-grade classes at East Jerusalem's Palestinian-majority municipal schools to use the Israeli curriculum exclusively this academic year.[Al Jazeera]
- The General Secretariat for Christian Educational Institutions stated that Israel suddenly declined to renew entry permits for more than 70 teachers and employees from the West Bank.[Al Jazeera]
- A Knesset law passed earlier this year bans the employment of teachers holding degrees from Palestinian Authority institutions, affecting about 60 percent of Arab educators in East Jerusalem.[Al Jazeera]
- Israeli forces recently seized educational compounds in the Shu'fat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, previously operated by UNRWA, to replace them with Israeli-administered facilities.[Al Jazeera]
What remains uncertain
- It is unclear how long the strike will last or whether legal actions by school administrators will succeed in restoring the teachers' permits.[Al Jazeera]