AL-MUGHAYYIR, OCCUPIED WEST BANK — Fear has gripped a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank as children returned to school amid growing attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli forces, with parents saying they are increasingly afraid for the safety of their children.
At al-Mughayyir boys school, teachers and parents have taken extraordinary measures to protect pupils following a series of deadly incidents around the village.
The school has installed reinforced gates and a long barbed-wire fence around its compound, while ambulance crews have been stationed outside and some parents have volunteered to remain at the school throughout the day.
“We are scared,” the school’s head-teacher, Bassam al-Assaf, said. “The students are afraid, and their parents are afraid.”
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Six people, including three pupils from the school, have been killed in al-Mughayyir this year amid a surge in settler-related violence, according to the supplied report. One of those killed was 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan, who was shot outside the school gates in April.
English teacher Waheed Abu Naem recalled the panic that erupted when pupils warned him that settlers were approaching the school.
He said he attempted to move the children to safety inside the school compound when a settler opened fire.
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“When I turned him onto his back, I saw lots of blood coming from his nose and mouth, and the bullet in his head,” Abu Naem said. “We lost him.”
According to the report, bullets continued striking the school building as pupils hid behind classroom walls or lay on the floor.
The Israeli military said at the time that stones had been thrown at a vehicle carrying civilians, including a reservist soldier, who then got out and fired at suspects. Israeli media subsequently reported that the reservist was suspended from duty and an investigation was launched.
Three Empty Desks
The violence has continued since the April shooting.
Two more pupils were reportedly shot dead by Israeli forces during settler attacks and incursions into al-Mughayyir over the summer, alongside a 19-year-old who had recently left the school.
In each case, the Israeli army said its forces had responded to people involved in what it described as a “violent riot.”
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The deaths have left three empty desks in classrooms at the school and prompted some parents to hesitate before sending their children back for the new academic year.
The school is located on the edge of al-Mughayyir, an isolated village northeast of Ramallah that has increasingly been surrounded by Jewish settler outposts.
Residents also say Israeli forces regularly block access to the village and operate an ad-hoc checkpoint at its entrance.
Parent Haroon Bishara said he had come to the school because his presence helped reassure his children.
“I came because it makes the children feel their parents are with them, that they are safe, it gives them a kind of security,” he said.
But he acknowledged that parents remained deeply concerned.
“We fear for our children more this year,” Bishara said. “We know the situation is not safe at the school.”
Despite the fear, he said families were determined not to abandon their homes because of settler attacks.
Children Taught How to Survive an Attack
During the school’s first assembly, teachers repeatedly instructed pupils on what to do if soldiers or settlers approached.
The instructions were stark: do not shout, do not go near them and do not react.
Less than two hours after classes began, settlers were reportedly seen through the school windows driving sheep through Palestinian fields only a few hundred metres from the school, while Israeli soldiers stood nearby.
Another settler with a flock of sheep appeared minutes later.
Teacher Waheed Abu Naem said settlers had moved closer to the village since April.
“They have got closer to the village since April,” he said, alleging that soldiers were now bringing settlers closer to the village.
The Israeli army was asked to respond to the allegations contained in the report but had not provided a response before publication, according to the supplied material.
UN Warns of Children Being Targeted
The situation in al-Mughayyir forms part of a wider pattern of violence reported across the occupied West Bank.
The supplied report cites a UN Commission of Inquiry which said settler attacks had “instrumentalized children” as part of what it described as a broader coercive strategy aimed at driving Palestinians from their land.
The commission also described a pattern of settlers intentionally targeting Palestinian children while they were playing near their homes, travelling to and from school, working on farms or herding livestock.
Israel rejected the commission’s report as a “libellous sham.”
In al-Mughayyir, sheep farmer Sami Abu Rahma said he believed his nine-year-old son, Salim, was deliberately targeted.
Salim was shot and injured at the end of July while playing with his siblings on the family’s sheep farm. The bullet remains lodged in his arm.
Security-camera footage reportedly shows the boy warning his parents that settlers were approaching before running for shelter with his siblings and mother. Two gunshots can then be heard, with Salim seen clutching his shoulder.
“In that moment, you stop thinking; you just feel fear,” his father said. “Fear that, God forbid, [the attacker] was shooting to kill. The first thing in your mind is losing the most precious thing you have.”
Abu Rahma said the man who shot his son lived in a settler outpost that had appeared beside the family farm in June and had allegedly shot at Salim in the same area a week earlier.
“You no longer feel you can keep them safe in the street, or even at school,” he said.
“The settlers don’t want us to stay here, [they want us to feel] as if there’s no future for us here.”
He said he was the last sheep farmer remaining in the area after other farmers were forced away by settler attacks.
Settlers Reject Allegations
The regional settlers council said an off-duty soldier had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the shooting.
In a statement, the council said it regretted harm to innocent people, “Jews or Arabs,” and opposed violence that violated the law.
It rejected attempts to attribute individual acts to the wider settlement community and dismissed claims that lawful sheep grazing or Jewish presence in the area formed part of a deliberate plan to harm children or drive Palestinians from their homes.
Violence Spreads Across West Bank
Al-Mughayyir is described in the report as part of a broader development across the occupied West Bank, where settler outposts are expanding around Palestinian communities and attacks are increasingly moving from farms and grazing areas into built-up villages.
According to UN figures cited in the report, Palestinian injuries resulting from attacks involving settlers or Israeli soldiers have risen sharply, averaging about three injuries per day this year. Injuries inflicted directly by settlers have also increased.
The increase has coincided with the expansion of Israeli settlements and settler outposts across the West Bank.
The report notes that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law, while many of the newer settler outposts are also illegal under Israeli law.
International pressure on Israel has also intensified, including from Britain, which the report says is expected to announce sanctions over Israeli settlement policies.
Meanwhile, reported arrests of violent settlers and a plan attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismantle illegal outposts have done little to reassure Palestinian residents, who say previously demolished outposts have quickly returned.
Plans by Israel’s Finance Ministry to take over land registration in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have also been criticised by the Israeli settlement-monitoring organisation Peace Now as a step towards annexation.
Netanyahu has described settler violence as the work of a small extremist minority, referring to those responsible as “150 juvenile delinquents.”
UN figures cited in the report say that from the beginning of 2025 through the end of July 2026, 316 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces or settlers and more than 5,600 injured.
Over the same period, the UN recorded 20 Israelis killed, including one child and eight members of the security forces, while 123 Israelis were injured.
For parents in al-Mughayyir, however, the statistics have become painfully personal.
They are sending their children back to classrooms where three desks remain empty, while parents wait outside the school as a human shield and teachers instruct pupils on how to respond if armed men approach.
And as violence continues to spread, families who have remained on their land face an increasingly agonizing question: how long can they keep their children safe without giving up the homes they have fought to remain in?
