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The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has documented more than 3,000 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians across the West Bank from January 2025 through June 2026, many of which have directly affected education by targeting schools or routes used by students. OCHA figures indicate these incidents have displaced over 2,300 Palestinians including more than 1,000 children in the first six months of 2026, with entire communities abandoning homes and nearby educational facilities as a result. The agency noted that settler violence has led to an average of more than three Palestinian injuries per day so far in 2026, a sharp increase from prior years that has compounded risks for schoolchildren.
According to a UNICEF report from April 2026, 99 education-related incidents were recorded in the West Bank that year up to that point, encompassing attacks, military raids on school grounds and obstructions that have disrupted learning for thousands. This builds on more than 550 similar incidents documented over the previous two years, during which 85 schools faced pending demolition orders impacting nearly 13,000 students and over 1,000 teachers. In one documented case from April 2026 in al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley, settlers demolished a local school following the forced displacement of most residents, leaving at least 40 children without access to education in their community.
Save the Children drew on OCHA data to report that 685 children were displaced due to settler violence in the first three months of 2026, a tenfold rise compared with the average for the same period in the preceding three years. The group added that seven Palestinian children were killed and 35 injured by Israeli forces and settlers during that window, including 22 injuries attributed to settlers, nearly matching the full-year settler injury totals for both 2023 and 2024 combined. Palestinian families have responded by limiting school attendance in high-risk areas, where daily commutes often bring children into proximity with settlement outposts.
A nine-year-old girl named Lina from the community of Qaryut in the northern West Bank told UNICEF that there was no sense of safety at home or anywhere in the village amid the repeated violence. Her comments echo accounts gathered by aid organisations in which parents describe weighing immediate physical threats against the longer-term harm of disrupted schooling. Reports from the BBC have similarly highlighted how such fears have led some families to keep children at home rather than risk exposure to attacks near educational sites.
The Education Cluster’s July 2026 assessment found that 84 schools across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were subject to pending demolition or stop-work orders, with 74 of them located in Area C. These orders, combined with 72 documented military incursions into school premises during the 2024-2025 academic year, have resulted in damaged buildings, confiscated materials and significant losses in instructional time. OCHA data from earlier updates placed annual lost class minutes for West Bank children at around 195,000 in 2025 due to such targeted disruptions.
UNICEF has stated that at least one Palestinian child has been killed on average every week between January 2025 and May 2026, with 93 percent of those deaths attributed to Israeli forces and the remainder linked to broader violence including settler incidents. The agency emphasised that schools, which should provide stability, are increasingly viewed as sites of risk, contributing to higher rates of absenteeism and potential dropouts in affected areas. Palestinian education officials have continued to document these patterns while seeking enhanced protection for students and facilities.
