UNESCO Chair issues a report on the right to education in the village of Awarta
17 May 2011
While Palestinian university students prepare and take their final exams of the spring semester, the students from the village of Awarta are still struggling to catch up with their classmates after being subjected to over a month of Israeli military incursions, curfews and mass arrests forced them to miss lectures and mid-term exams, and destructive military home raids left computers, books and other school materials destroyed.
Immediately following the murder of a family in the settlement of Itamar on March 11, the Israeli military launched an investigation that focused exclusively on the nearby Palestinian village of Awarta in the Nablus Governate. For six weeks, Israeli military operations in the village amounted to a policy of collective punishment against the 6,500 residents of Awarta as a whole, including the imposition of strict curfews for days on end, mass arrests and forced taking of DNA and fingerprints of over 700 residents including women, children and the elderly, and terrorizing incursions and home raids in the early hours of the morning. This Report examines the impact of these military operations on the university students of Awarta and their basic human rights, especially the right to education.
Over 100 students from Awarta attend An Najah National University, located 15 minutes away in the West Bank city of Nablus. Since March 12, these students have been forced to miss days and sometimes weeks of class, including critical exam periods due to curfews, closures, and abuse and arrest of the students and their families. At least thirty percent of male students were arrested and held for prolonged periods, resulting in the loss of the entire semester for several of these students.
The Israeli military has also subjected nearly every home in Awarta to invasive searches, which have been accompanied by vandalism, gratuitous destruction of furniture, electronics and other property, and theft of cash and valuables. Ninety-seven percent of students interviewed reported that their family home had been raided at least twice, while some students reported up to ten or more raids. Israeli soldiers destroyed or confiscated students’ computers, school books and research during home raids, resulting in lost graduation projects and notes for the entire semester. Additionally, over half of the students interviewed reported witnessing one or both of their parents arrested and taken from their homes, as well as witnessing the arrests of siblings and extended family members taken in the middle of the night.
Moreover, students report that the military operations into their villages, in which soldiers threw sound bombs into the street and pounded on doors usually in the early hours of the morning, have left them too exhausted, traumatized and without basic requirements, such as electricity, to allow them to spend sufficient time on their studies. All students have reported plummeting grades, and increased anxiety about their academic and professional futures.
Note to the editor: The UNESCO Chair on Human Rights and Democracy is dedicated to promoting human rights education, and engages in human rights research and advocacy to provide support and resources to create durable links between the academic and local community.
Immediately following the murder of a family in the settlement of Itamar on March 11, the Israeli military launched an investigation that focused exclusively on the nearby Palestinian village of Awarta in the Nablus Governate. For six weeks, Israeli military operations in the village amounted to a policy of collective punishment against the 6,500 residents of Awarta as a whole, including the imposition of strict curfews for days on end, mass arrests and forced taking of DNA and fingerprints of over 700 residents including women, children and the elderly, and terrorizing incursions and home raids in the early hours of the morning. This Report examines the impact of these military operations on the university students of Awarta and their basic human rights, especially the right to education.
Over 100 students from Awarta attend An Najah National University, located 15 minutes away in the West Bank city of Nablus. Since March 12, these students have been forced to miss days and sometimes weeks of class, including critical exam periods due to curfews, closures, and abuse and arrest of the students and their families. At least thirty percent of male students were arrested and held for prolonged periods, resulting in the loss of the entire semester for several of these students.
The Israeli military has also subjected nearly every home in Awarta to invasive searches, which have been accompanied by vandalism, gratuitous destruction of furniture, electronics and other property, and theft of cash and valuables. Ninety-seven percent of students interviewed reported that their family home had been raided at least twice, while some students reported up to ten or more raids. Israeli soldiers destroyed or confiscated students’ computers, school books and research during home raids, resulting in lost graduation projects and notes for the entire semester. Additionally, over half of the students interviewed reported witnessing one or both of their parents arrested and taken from their homes, as well as witnessing the arrests of siblings and extended family members taken in the middle of the night.
Moreover, students report that the military operations into their villages, in which soldiers threw sound bombs into the street and pounded on doors usually in the early hours of the morning, have left them too exhausted, traumatized and without basic requirements, such as electricity, to allow them to spend sufficient time on their studies. All students have reported plummeting grades, and increased anxiety about their academic and professional futures.
Note to the editor: The UNESCO Chair on Human Rights and Democracy is dedicated to promoting human rights education, and engages in human rights research and advocacy to provide support and resources to create durable links between the academic and local community.
