BETHLEHEM, August 22, 2017 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Tuesday seized mobile classrooms brought for an elementary school in the village of Jib al-Deeb, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, leaving dozens of young students without a school, said Hasan Breijieh, a Bethlehem area activist.

He said Israeli forces hauled the mobile classrooms on trucks and took them away under the pretext they were put up without permission leaving some 60 students without a school to attend with the start of the new schoolyear.

Breijieh said residents attempted to block the army takeover of the classrooms, which he said were licensed. Soldiers fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at the residents to disperse them without causing any injury.

Sami Marwa, director of the education department in Bethlehem, said that Jib al-Deeb school was built in an area central to several communities and was constructed to accommodate 64 students from 1st to 4th grade.

He said teachers and staff began work at the school on Sunday to prepare for the official opening of the new schoolyear on Wednesday but that the ministry has now to look for an alternative school to accommodate the young students left without a school.

K.T./M.K.