Tel Aviv [Israel], May 8: Israeli authorities on May 7 destroyed a Palestinian school in the West Bank, drawing harsh condemnation from the European Union.
According to Reuters, the Coordinator of Government Operations of the Government of Israel in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli military, issued a statement that the building had been illegally constructed and was "found to cause danger to the safety of anyone studying or going there". So. an Israeli Court "ordered the destruction of the building".
COGAT said the owner of the building, located about 2km from Bethlehem, had rejected several attempts by Israel to talk about the condition of the structure before the demolition.
Students and witnesses said the building had become rubble and there was no trace of the school that once stood there.
"We were ready to go to school and when we arrived, the school was no longer there," student Mohammed Ibrahim told Reuters.
Witnesses also said furniture in the building was confiscated.
"They destroyed the school and took everything with them. All the belongings were loaded onto the truck and carried away," said Ismael Salah, a nearby resident and whose nephew is a student at the school. said.
Ahead of the action, the European Union's (EU) mission to Palestine said on Twitter that it was "appalled" by the destruction of the school. The move will affect 60 Palestinian children. The EU delegation also said school demolitions were "illegal under international law", "only increasing the suffering of the Palestinian people and escalating the situation in an already tense place".
Reuters quoted an official Israeli source as saying the dispute over the safety of the building had dragged on for six years and that a nearby school would accept students displaced by the demolition.
Israel often uses the excuse of a lack of building permits to destroy Palestinian structures in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Palestine wants the more than half a million Jews settled there, along with Israeli soldiers , to leave the territories it says are occupied. Israel does not want to do this and cites historical claims about the lands in the Bible.
The Palestinian Education Ministry called criticism of the school's demolition a "heinous crime". The agency said Israel 's action would prevent "schoolchildren from receiving a free, safe and stable education, like children in other parts of the world".
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper