JERUSALEM, November 7, 2017 (WAFA) –  Students and their families on Tuesday held a sit-in at Zahwat al-Quds school in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina to protest the Israeli municipality’s closure of their school the day before.

Israeli police raided the school and detained its principal and three teachers before ordering the school shut down two months into the schoolyear. The students were told to look for another school to attend.

Students, parents and activists participated in the sit-in called for to condemn the raid, the detention of the faculty members and the Israeli municipality’s decision to shut it down.

The school had a permit to operate by the Muslim Awqaf department, but the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem, which is using financial enticement and coercion to enforce Israeli curriculum on the Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem, refused to recognize it.

East Jerusalem has private schools, semi-private ones such as the ones run by the Muslim Awqaf, schools run by the United Nations mainly in refugee camps and public schools run by the municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education.

Most Palestinian families prefer to send their children to private schools, which use the Palestinian curriculum, to avoid subjecting their sons to the controversial Israeli curriculum that changes content of school books to suit Israeli rule over the occupied city.

T.R./M.K.