A tiny school

Nabi Samwil Mixed School (toilet at right) 

In the Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil (on the Jerusalem side of the separation barrier) stands a sturdy, a tiny one-room school for a dozen students in grades one through four. Headmaster Khaleel Abu-Arqoup calls it "the world's smallest school." That may be hyperbole, but the 13 x 16-foot school certainly must be one of the smallest four-grade schools anywhere. The interior is crammed with Khaleel's desk in one corner and a dozen small student desks.

The school uses the Palestinian Authority curriculum, and is funded by the Awqaf (Religious Endowments) Department with money from other Arab countries.

Khaleel Abu-Arqoup

Khaleel's office corner

Students at the one-room school

Khaleel has three teachers on his staff, and he helps, too. That's a pupil-teacher ratio of 3:1, which allows for individualized instruction. The teachers take turns using the classroom, and some teach outside in good weather. Khaleel is proud of student performance, because their scores are at the top in the standardized fourth grade tests in Arabic and math.

"Our greatest need is more space," says Khaleel. Israeli authorities cannot demolish the building because it predates 1967, but they refuse to grant permission to build an addition or bring in a trailer to accommodate more students.

Students preparing to cross Al-Jib Checkpoint

The Nabi Samwil school's enrollment could easily double given more space, because other young students now have to ride a bus though Al-Jib checkpoint in the separation barrier to reach Arab schools on the other side, along with the older students. We monitored the checkpoint for one hour yesterday morning and estimate that 94 Palestinian students from various villages came through without problems on their way to schools on the West Bank side. Most were on buses; a few were walking.

We also counted 222 people coming from the West Bank, mostly construction workers with jobs in the Israeli settlements. They said it is relatively easy to get three-month permits from Israeli authorities to cross the checkpoint every day, but they can be delayed there for up to two hours by an arbitrary soldier. They said the morning we were there the crossing was easy.





Later yesterday we visited the headquarters of the Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, whose name in Hebrew means "in the image of" a reference to the Genesis account of the creation of humankind. It produces research reports on systemic issues for policymakers, engages in public outreach through videos and social media, and pursues accountability in individual cases of human rights violations. Its website, with a wealth of valuable information, is www.btselem.org.

Noam Rabinovich

B'Tselem's international research associate Noam Rabinovich, who was born in Israel and lived for two years in the United States, told us that one of the organization's current concerns is illegal use of crowd control measures by Israeli forces. "Monitoring demonstrations is a priority for us," she said. She said that last year attack dogs were used nine times, and the army changed the policy to prohibit it. In January of this year, she said five Palestinians were killed by live fire, which is strictly forbidden. B'Tselem's latest report on crowd control in the West Bank was issued in January, and you can read a summary or the full report under the publications tab of their website.