The school day had barely begun Tuesday when gunfire tore through the morning.
Children were in classrooms, teachers were preparing lessons, and parents were going about their day in the Palestinian village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of the West Bank city of Ramallah, when Israeli occupiers, backed by Israeli soldiers, stormed the area around the local school and opened fire.
Within minutes, the school grounds had turned into a scene of panic.
Two Palestinians were killed, including a 14-year-old boy, and several others were wounded as parents and residents rushed toward the school to evacuate the students trapped inside.
For residents, the attack was not an isolated outburst but the latest episode in what they describe as a sustained campaign of violence against the village, a deliberate terror offensive to force people to give up their homes.
Parents run toward gunfire
Kadhim al-Hajj Mohammad said he was among those who rushed toward the school after administrators called on families to come immediately and take their children home.
By the time residents arrived, he said, Israeli occupiers had already spread around the area while Israeli soldiers took positions nearby.
“The school asked parents to come and get their children,” he told Anadolu.
“But when people came, the army also opened fire.”
According to him, Jihad Abu Naim – likely an onlooker to the assault on the school – was killed while standing among the parents outside.
Another victim, Aws al-Naasan, 14, was killed during the attack near the school.
Several other people were wounded, some seriously.
Kadhim said what happened appeared carefully coordinated.
“The occupiers came from one side and the army from the other,” he said. “This was an exchange of roles.”
He described the attack as part of daily attempts to force residents from the village through fear and repeated violence.
“We are surrounded in Al-Mughayyir, but we will stay on our land whatever the cost,” he added.
Students trapped, parents wounded
Another resident, Faraj al-Naasan, said the attack began just as students were arriving for class.
He said Israeli occupiers, accompanied by armed soldiers, moved toward the school, prompting the principal to ask parents to evacuate the children.
But before concerned families could even reach the school, heavy indiscriminate gunfire broke out.
“Everything happened in moments,” he told Anadolu. “There was shooting everywhere.”
According to him, some of the wounded were students inside the school, while others were parents and residents who had come to help evacuate children and the injured.
The result, he said, was chaos that spread across the school and surrounding streets within minutes.
Village under siege
Residents say Al-Mughayyir has faced repeated attacks in recent days.
The village has been under an Israeli army siege since Sunday following another occupier assault that triggered confrontations around its outskirts.
While Israeli authorities had not yet commented on the incident as of 1540GMT Tuesday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the attack amounted to a massacre carried out in full coordination between Israeli occupiers and the army.
In a statement, the ministry said “occupier gangs” targeted the school, killing two Palestinians, including a child, and wounding at least four others.
It described the attack as part of a broader Israeli policy aimed at imposing what it called an illegal and coercive reality through violence, settlement expansion, and the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank.
The ministry also warned that the absence of international accountability is encouraging further attacks.
It called on the international community, particularly European countries, to move beyond statements of condemnation and to take practical steps, including designating settler groups as terrorist organizations and imposing sanctions on the settlement system and the Israeli army.
Violence by Israeli occupiers and Israeli forces has escalated since October 2023, killing more than 1,148 Palestinians, wounding 11,750 and leading to nearly 22,000 arrests.
In a landmark 2024 opinion, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
*Writing by Tarek Chouiref
