A journey to school through fear and barriers

Ramallah: Every morning, Palestinian mother Ataa Odeh watches her four-year-old daughter, Maysaa, board a school bus in Qasra, a northern West Bank town.

Her daughter’s preschool is not far from their home but the short journey has become a daily source of anxiety for the 26-year-old mother because of Israeli forces and settlers near the road.

“My house is here. The bus takes only four or five minutes to get Maysaa to school but every day I watch it until it disappears from my sight,” Odeh said.

“I cannot predict when they will appear and I cannot guarantee that they will not do something to the children,” she added, referring to Israeli forces and settlers. “All I can do is keep my children within my sight as much as possible.”

The entrance to Qasra is near the Israeli settlement of Migdalim and has been closed by Israel with a barrier since October 7, 2023, the onset of the latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to residents.

Qasra mayor Abdel Azim Wadi said the closure has affected education, with some residents unable to reach their workplaces and children unable to attend school.

A few minutes’ walk from the barrier is the Martyr Yasser Arafat Basic Mixed School. The school is frequently affected by attacks from settlers and operations by the Israeli military, which have made pupils’ arrival and departure a daily concern, principal Dalia Odeh said.

“I do not feel reassured until I enter the classroom and see that all the students are present,” said Olena Marwan, an English teacher.

The risks faced by students are part of a broader disruption to education in the West Bank.

According to a Unicef report issued in September, 224 education-related incidents were recorded in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the first half of 2026. The incidents involved the killing, injury or detention of children in schools or on their way to schools, damage to school facilities and the use of school buildings by the military.

Palestinian children wait for school bus near a closed Israeli checkpoint gate in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the West Bank, on September 16, 2026. /Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua

Palestinian public schools in the West Bank are operating three days a week amid financial difficulties and movement restrictions, says teachers and residents.

For 16-year-old Shaden Mohammed Naje, a pupil at Qasra Secondary School for Girls, the shortened school week has made each school day more important, while the journey to school remains uncertain.

“The school was nearby and I did not want to miss one of the three school days. So I held the hands of my classmates, and we continued walking, supporting one another, but my heart was beating very fast,” she said. “Teachers and students still cannot always arrive on time because we frequently encounter Israeli army operations or settler attacks.”

Naje is not alone in facing such fears. Mira Al-Hathaleen, a 10-year-old pupil, at Om al-Khair Elementary School for Girls in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, knows the feeling all too well.

“I am now afraid of walking along this road,” Al-Hathaleen said. “Once, while we were walking to school with my classmates, several settlers approached us with large dogs and released the dogs toward us. We were terrified.”

To avoid attacks along the way and roadblocks erected by Israeli forces, the school arranged a bus to transport affected pupils along a longer alternative route.

“I miss the days when we could go to school without fear,” Al-Hathaleen said. “But now, we have no choice.”

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