Schools are supposed to be places of learning. Children should be able to attend them safely and without fear of retribution. Unfortunately, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, schools have become a place of violence and intimidation.
In the last week, Israeli surveillance aircraft have taken aerial images of Palestinian militants using a United Nations-run school to launch homemade rockets and mortars into Israel. The U.N., Israel and the international community have been quick to decry the terrorists who perpetrated this act of cowardice.
The missile attack was in response to an Israeli incursion into Gaza earlier in the day. This incursion forced the evacuation of the school, so no students, U.N. personnel, or U.N. guards were on the grounds of the school when the militants arrived and began firing. The U.N. has promised to open a full investigation into the situation.
The Israelis are just as guilty of using the schools for military purposes. In the past seven years, the United Nations has documented 43 instances of an Israeli Defense Force takeover of U.N.-run schools in Gaza and the West Bank. The IDF uses the schools as command posts during military operations against militants based in neighborhoods near the schools. Also, the IDF has used schools as interrogation centers during large scale round-ups of the local populace of Arab males.
The teachers and students at the schools themselves are not safe from either side. Earlier this year, Palestinian extremists in Gaza threw grenades at a U.N. school, killing one person and wounding six others. In January, IDF soldiers opened fire with tear gas and rubber bullets in a busy street in front of a U.N. school. Again, an innocent Palestinian student was killed. There have been numerous instances where the U.N. closes down Palestinian schools because of factional violence between Palestinian armed groups as well as violent incursions by the Israeli military.
In instances where the schools have not closed down, many students have lost their lives. During the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, several students were killed as schools were caught in the crossfire. During Israeli military strikes against Palestinian targets, schools become just another bit of collateral damage and even more students are killed.
The United States, the U.N. and the international community as a whole, need to stand up and say enough is enough. Palestinian children should be able to attend school in peace without the threat of leaving the building in pieces. Hamas and Islamic Jihad must stop using the schools as staging grounds and start viewing the U.N. workers as people trying to help rebuild the ruins of Palestine. Israel also must do its part by respecting international law and not targeting schools or using them as command posts for military operations. Children, after all, are supposed to be innocent.
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