Israeli forces close down school in Hebron’s old city

Ma’an – October 16, 2011

HEBRON — Israeli forces closed down a school in Hebron’s old city for the fourth day in a row on Sunday, a local official said.

Sameeh Abu Zakiye, an official in the Department of Education in Hebron, said that soldiers gave students orders to evict the building before forcibly removing them from the property, official news agency Wafa reported.

The school’s janitor was also detained after being accused of attacking Israeli soldiers, Abu Zakiya said.

Around 800 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians in the parts of the ancient city that are under Israeli control.

Israeli restrictions on movement and access, many of them dating back to the Palestinian uprising at the start of the decade, have turned parts of the old city into a ghost town. Poverty has risen in a city that was traditionally an engine of the Palestinian economy.