OCHA: West Bank schooling disrupted by displacement, pending demolitions

More than 830,000 Palestinian boys and girls returned to school this week in the occupied West Bank, but thousands face continued disruption to their education, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In a statement, OCHA said more than 4,000 students among those returning to school had been displaced from refugee camps in the northern West Bank and have not been allowed to return. Schooling has also been affected by the closure of six UNRWA schools in occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli authorities, OCHA said. In Area C of the West Bank, 10 schools serving more than 360 students remain abandoned after the communities they served were displaced by recurrent settler attacks and related access restrictions. Meanwhile, 84 schools remain under pending demolition or stop-work orders, putting the continued education of nearly 13,000 students at risk, according to OCHA. A Palestinian girl attends class online from her home in Dura village in occupied West Bank during a surge in Covid cases on 3 February 2022. (AFP)