Jerusalem schools strike after Israel enforces curriculum and bans teachers

The academic year in occupied East Jerusalem began on Tuesday with an open-ended strike by teachers at private and Christian schools after Israeli meddling in students’ curriculum.

All new first and seventh-grade classes at East Jerusalem’s Palestinian-majority municipal schools have been told to exclusively use the Israeli curriculum this year.

Entry permits for West Bank teachers to teach in East Jerusalem schools have also been blocked by Israel, according to Haaretz.

It means that one-in-three Palestinian students in occupied East Jerusalem, more than 45,000 in total, will be enrolled in the Israeli educational programme, a nearly fourfold increase over six years ago.

Jerusalem Governorate spokesman Marouf al-Rifai described the forced integration of Israeli curriculum into Palestinian schools as a cultural and educational crime.

“The adherence of Jerusalem’s people, teachers, and students to the Palestinian curriculum is not merely an adherence to a textbook, but rather a defense of memory, identity, history, and the right to determine the national narrative,” he said in a statement on Facebook.

Israeli forces recently seized educational compounds formerly operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the Shu’fat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, to be replaced with Israeli-administered facilities.

Hamas official Haroun Nasser el-Din issued a statement saying that “the school, the book, and awareness are basic pillars in the battle of Jerusalem”. East Jerusalem and the West Bank have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.