The New Year in Ein Samiya starts with the school’s demolition; While all people around the world will be celebrating the New Year, students from Ein Samiya school, east of Ramallah will start the year without a school as the Israeli authorities intend to demolish it on December 31, 2022, after the Israeli Supreme Court refused an appeal regarding the school demolition and gave a final demolition order
Denial of Education in area C: Ein Samiya school.
Ein Samiya School is one of the schools of resilience and challenge located in Area C, the school was built on donated private land with a voluntary effort and international fund to serve around 45 Palestinian students from Ein Samiya Community. Now Apartheid Israel intends to demolish the school denying students their right to education.
How could a 500-meter square elementary school with galvanized sheet walls threaten the security of an occupying colonial state? However, the Israeli Apartheid occupation came to the conclusion that the presence of schools in targeted areas leads to the survival of the communities in facing settlement expansions. And so, attacks on schools and denial of education are part of a systematic colonial project to expel the Palestinian people from their lands.
Ein Samiya is one of plenty of schools in Area C that is under the threat to be demolished. School demolition is a cornerstone in the Israeli policy to defend ethnically cleanse the area from Palestinians by pressuring them to leave their lands.
Before building Ein Samiya School, children had to walk long distances to reach the schools in the neighboring villages enduring summer’s scorching sun and winter’s bitter cold. The presence of the school is a core element in people’s steadfastness.
According to Montaser Al- Malki, a grassroots organizer from Kufr Malik, “ Despite all violations against the residents of Ein Samiya, they are steadfast in their lands, herding their sheep, cultivating their lands defeating all inhumane acts imposed on them to flee from the land’. He adds “students are struggling to defend their right to education, they are determined to come to school facing all criminal verdicts that aim to deprive them of their right to education as well as their right to exist”
The occupation authorities escalate their onslaught on Palestinian schools in Area C as it is paving the way to ethnically cleanse it from Palestinians for settlement expansion. Less than a month has passed since the demolition of Al-Safi school, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
It is worth mentioning that there are also 4 schools under threat of being demolished in Masafer Yatta, which are, Khallet Ad-dabe’, Al- Majaz, Jinba, and Al- Fakheet.
Ein Samiya lands and community
The economic importance of Ein Samia made it a coveted object of Israeli control, there are six groundwater wells in Ein Samiya region that have been supplying drinking water to most of the eastern villages of Ramallah since the sixties of the last century.
The occupation seeks to control this area by allowing armed settlers to establish random outposts that start with setting up tents and then control hundreds and thousands of dunums of agricultural land.
Ein Samiya community is a Bedouin community in eastern Ramallah, it consists of 28 families with a population of around 300 Palestinian residents. These residents have been herding and cultivating their lands for more than 35 years enduring settlers’ attacks and violence. Now the brutal occupation aims to expel them for settlement expansion. They allow settlers to harrass the Palestinian residents and issue ever more restrictive military orders to weaken Palestinian steadfastness.
In 2020, Stop the Wall launched the Right to Education Campaign which aims to defend students’ right to education in Area ‘C’ by offering national and international support.
What can you do to defend Ein Samiya School from demolition
If no action is taken to defend Ein Samiya school, the whole community would be ethnically cleansed. Israeli apartheid must be held accountable.
ACT Now: Join Our campaign to defend Ein Samiya school from demolition
Here is what you can do
- Write statements to your teacher’s unions and work with them to ensure that the voice of these students is heard.
- Contact your local media, to tell the story of the Palestinian students, and to help in exposing the Israeli systematic policies against Palestinian schools.
- Build pressure to end the international complicity to dismantle Israeli apartheid to defend Palestinian students’ right to education.
- Support the Boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns, sign the petition and make your area an Apartheid Free Zone.
- Join our Twitter storm on December 23, 2022
Social Media Toolkit
Tweet suggestions
Tweet #1:
What is happening in Ein Samiya’ is the cornerstone of the huge ethnic cleansing campaign led by the Israeli government and different settler organizations to impose Jewish dominance over the area.
#DefendEinSamiya #EndEthnicCleansing Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #2:
The International community’s failure to apply effective accountability measures, including sanctions, reinforces Israeli illegal ethnic cleansing practices. I call on [tag your MEP/foreign minister/secretary of state] to hold the Israeli government accountable and demand: #EndEthnicCleansing #UNinvestigateApartheid
Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #3:
Bulldozer companies @JCBmachines, @VolvoGroup, @HyundaiHeavyInd, @CaterpillarInc make huge profits from Israel’s destruction of Palestinian schools like #DefendEinSamiya. Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
#EndEthnicCleansing and hold accomplices accountable!
Tweet #4:
Israeli Apartheid regime deprives Palestinian students of accessing the right to education by imposing its colonial policies in order to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their ancestral land. #DefendEinSamiya #EndEthnicCleansing https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #5:
While all people around the world are celebrating the New Year, students in Ein Samiya School are anxiously expecting an imminent Israeli demolition of their school. Act Now! #DefendEinSamiya #UNIvestigateApartheid
Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #6:
Palestinians in Ein Samiya are struggling to protect their right to education as well as the right to exist. The existence of the school in the area of Ein Samiya is an obstacle to Israel’s settlements’ expansion. Act Now to #DefendEinSamiya
Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #7:
Act Now and Join our call to #DefendEinSamiya school from demolition. The eminent demolition of Ein Samiya School is a continuation of a long-standing onslaught on the Palestinian right to education in the area and beyond. #EndEthnicCleansing Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j
Tweet #8:
The occupation state is violating international law by attacking the Palestinian schools preventing children from their right to education in order to expel them from their ancestral land. #DefendEinSamiya #UNinvestigateApartheid
Act Now: https://tinyurl.com/45u97p5j