Israeli forces this morning removed a Palestine flag off a school building in al-Lubban Ash-Sharqiya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.

Ayesha Nubani, the principal of al-Lubban Secondary Girls Schools, said that Israeli soldiers sneaked their way into the school building in the early morning hours, took down the Palestine flag, and raised the Israeli flag atop the building.

She added that this was not the first time for the Palestine flag to be taken down, but was the first to have the Israeli flag raised instead.

Meanwhile, the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry slammed the removal of the flag and said that Israel, the occupying power, is targeting Palestinian educational institutions, particularly those located on settler-only bypass roads and in Area C of the occupied West Bank, such as Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley, that are subject to the most atrocious forms of ethnic cleansing.

It added that the flag removal was a direct result of the incitement to hatred by Israeli radical far-right settlers known for Jewish supremacist rhetoric, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and part of Israel’s unabated efforts to de-Palestine and annex the West Bank.

Attacks on education by Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers in Palestine constitute grave violations of children’s rights to education and development. These attacks are particularly prevalent in the most vulnerable areas of the West Bank – Area C, H2, and Jerusalem.

Over 800,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency