BETHLEHEM, Wednesday, January 11, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today briefly held Palestinian students in Tuqu‘ town, southeast of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to a local activist.

Mustafa al-Badn said that the heavily-armed soldiers intercepted and chased schoolchildren as the latter were exiting Tuqu‘ Secondary Boys School in the southern West Bank town, and eventually briefly held five of them.

In late September 2022, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy died after falling from a significant height while running away from Israeli soldiers in the town.

Rayyan Yaser Suleiman was coming home from school with other pupils in the town when troops gave chase, and he died on the spot from fear, his father Yasser said.

A medical official who inspected the boy's body told Reuters that it bore no sign of physical trauma and that the death appeared consistent with heart failure.

Attacks on education by Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers in the Palestine constitute grave violations of children’s rights to education and development. These attacks are particularly prevalent in the most vulnerable areas of the West Bank – Area C, H2 and Jerusalem.

K.F.