What’s happening?
Since September 2025, public schools run by the Palestinian Authority are open only three days a week instead of the usual five.
This is because teachers are striking over unpaid salaries due to Israel’s withholding of nearly 8 billions of shekels in Palestinian tax revenues since October 2023.
A recent UNICEF/OCHA humanitarian report estimates that around 808,000 school-aged children in the West Bank are affected in their learning due to a combination of access restrictions and disruption to schooling.
The consequences are dramatic for the children and their families: fading ambition, growing frustration, and profound psychological harm.
What you can do
Anywhere you are in the world, you can write to your representative to ask them to:
Raise this issue publicly within your country’s Parliament
Press your government to call on Israel to release Palestinian clearance revenues withheld under existing agreements
Ensure that your country’s foreign policy and international engagements actively uphold the protection of children’s rights, including the right to uninterrupted education in situations of occupation and conflict.
Download a template letter to send to your
representative here.
Everyone has the right to education.
Article 26 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
The Occupying Power shall, with the cooperation
of the national and local authorities, facilitate
the proper working of all institutions devoted
to the care and education of children.
Article 50 of the
IV Geneva Convention (1949)
Ratified by the State of Israel on July 6, 1951
Events
Educational Apartheid
10 MARCH 2026
In this conversation with the Friends of Combatants for Peace and members of the Solidarity Circle, psychologist and CfP activist Tuly Flint will discuss the psychological effects of the reduction of instructional time for children enrolled in the Palestinian Authority public schools.
Actions
In August 2025, Combatants for Peace distributed school supplies to the children of displaced families from Ras Ein al-Auja ahead of the beginning of the school year.
Photos by David Johnson
