Jerusalem schools strike after Israel enforces curriculum and bans teachers
Mohammad Mansour reports in Al Jazeera on 1 September 2026:
The academic year in occupied East Jerusalem began on Tuesday with an open-ended strike by teachers at private and Christian schools after Israeli meddling in students’ curriculum. All new first and seventh-grade classes at East Jerusalem’s Palestinian-majority municipal schools have been told to exclusively use the Israeli curriculum this year.
Entry permits for West Bank teachers to teach in East Jerusalem schools have also been blocked by Israel, according to Haaretz.
It means that one-in-three Palestinian students in occupied East Jerusalem, more than 45,000 in total, will be enrolled in the Israeli educational programme, a nearly fourfold increase over six years ago.
Jerusalem Governorate spokesman Marouf al-Rifai described the forced integration of Israeli curriculum into Palestinian schools as a cultural and educational crime. “The adherence of Jerusalem’s people, teachers, and students to the Palestinian curriculum is not merely an adherence to a textbook, but rather a defense of memory, identity, history, and the right to determine the national narrative,” he said in a statement on Facebook.
Israeli forces recently seized educational compounds formerly operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the Shu’fat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, to be replaced with Israeli-administered facilities.
Hamas official Haroun Nasser el-Din issued a statement saying that “the school, the book, and awareness are basic pillars in the battle of Jerusalem”. East Jerusalem and the West Bank have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.
“The Palestinian identity in Jerusalem is deeper than to be erased by imposed curricula or the occupation’s procedures and its arrogant policies,” he added.
The permit crisis
Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem have already suffered a severe staffing shortage due to Israel effectively blocking teachers from the West Bank from reaching the city’s schools. The General Secretariat for Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem announced an indefinite strike in response to the crisis.
“We were surprised, unfortunately once again, by the non-renewal of entry permits for more than 70 teachers and employees from our educational, administrative, and support cadres, in a sudden manner and without prior warning, which hindered their access to their schools and directly affected their readiness for the opening of the school year,” the body said in a statement.
“The absence of this large number of cadres affects various aspects of school work, educational, administrative, and health, in addition to cleaning services and security and safety procedures, which makes it impossible to guarantee a safe and stable start for our students.”