Students line up on the first day of the school year at a newly fortified al-Mughayyir school. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA View image in fullscreen Students line up on the first day of the school year at a newly fortified al-Mughayyir school. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA Palestine ‘Our aim is that children are protected’: besieged West Bank school fortifies its defences against settler violence After deaths of five students at hands of Israeli settlers in last academic year, al-Mughayyir’s teachers and pupils are on high alert
About this content William Christou and Sufian Abu Taha in al-Mughayyir Tue 3 Nov 2026 07.00 CET Last modified on Tue 3 Nov 2026 07.02 CET Share Prefer the Guardian on Google This year, parents in al-Mughayyir had to be persuaded to send their children back to school. Israeli settlers had killed five teenage students last academic year – one of them at the school gates.
To reassure parents, teachers of the public secondary school gave a tour of the facilities, which they had spent the summer break fortifying. Metal fences now towered over the schoolyard’s walls and the door had been replaced by a sturdy metal gate. A new wall shielded the classrooms from a hilltop where last academic year a settler had shot dead two people, including a student.
Al-Mughayyir, a town of about 3,000 people north-east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, is under a siege by Israeli settlers. Armed settlers regularly raid the village, assaulting residents, attacking homes and seizing livestock. Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints that prevent people from entering or leaving for hours at a time.
View image in fullscreen Children watch Israeli security forces deploying in al-Mughayyir on 29 September, when dozens of settlers from hilltop outposts raided the village, leaving at least five burnt-out cars. Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images The school is isolated on the very edge of the village, close to its entrance. Settlers stage their raids around the school, attacking under the watchful eye of the Israeli military.
A single Israeli soldier stands at the entrance of the village, his rifle slung over his shoulder as he paces back and forth idly. It is he who decides who can come and go in the village. The excited shouting of schoolchildren playing can be heard from where he stands; the children’s voices echo across the otherwise quiet village, most shops shuttered despite it being a weekday.
Residents say the violence is part of a wider project to displace Palestinians from their land , one that has already driven smaller communities from their homes. Now, they fear the same tactics are being turned against an entire village in an attempt to make life so intolerable that residents leave.
View image in fullscreen An Israeli patrol officer stands watch near al-Mughayyir in early September. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA “When the settlers began their attacks, they began in the Jordan valley area, displacing communities of farmers consisting of 10, 20 people. Now, they are trying to displace entire villages. What’s happening in al-Mughayyir is the beginning of this project,” said Ameen Abu Alia, the 54-year-old mayor of the town.
Abu Alia has watched as the number of settler outposts – small groups of Israeli shepherds who establish outposts near Palestinian communities – has multiplied around the town over the last three years. In 2023, there was just one settler outpost near the town. Now, there are 12.
Settlers now ent…