The Israeli occupation court on Tuesday upheld the demolition order targeting Al‑Rifa’iyya School east of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank’s southern part, rejecting the appeal filed by the school’s attorney and clearing the way for the demolition to be carried out within fourteen days.
Basem Jabr, director of the Yatta Education Department, said the court dismissed the appeal despite the fact that the school serves nearly four hundred students from the Ziv area and several nearby neighborhoods located along the illegal colonial road east of Hebron.
He explained that the school is the only educational facility available to these communities, and that the demolition order is part of a broader pattern of targeting Palestinian education infrastructure in areas classified as “C,” particularly in Masafer Yatta, Bani Naim, and communities situated near colonial roads.
The demolition order against Al‑Rifa’iyya School fits into a long‑standing Israeli strategy of issuing demolition and stop‑work orders against schools in southern Hebron, where authorities routinely claim “building without a permit” while simultaneously refusing to grant permits to Palestinian communities.
Rights groups have documented repeated attempts to dismantle educational facilities in the area, warning that such actions violate international humanitarian law and directly undermine the right of children to education.
