Incident took place on first day back at school in small village, as settlers blocked pupils’ access
Israeli forces have fired teargas at Palestinian schoolchildren who were staging a sit-in in the occupied West Bank after settlers blocked access to their school.
The Israeli military said it had dispersed an “unusual gathering”, but did not specify whether its troops had fired teargas at the children on the first day of class since the start of the Iran war.
The incident took place at Umm al-Khair, a small village in the southern West Bank region of Masafer Yatta.
Schoolchildren there had been due back in class on Monday for the first time in more than 40 days, after lessons were suspended as a result of the Israeli-US attack on Iran on 28 February.
A group of schoolchildren and Palestinian residents had gathered near a barbed wire fence erected by Israeli settlers, which blocked access to the school.
Schoolchildren and some local adults were holding an open-air class as a sit-in to demand access when troops fired the teargas, witnesses said.
“We were sitting and they threw a grenade [teargas canister] at us. I got scared and started screaming and ran away,” said 12-year-old Sarah al-Hathaleen.
“I started crying. A woman hugged me and stayed with me. We were very scared.”
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/13/israeli-forces-fire-teargas-at-schoolchildren-holding-west-bank-sit-in
