Palestinian children in east Jerusalem could lose their schools as Israeli-ordered closures loom

JERUSALEM (AP) — Standing in the east Jerusalem school he attended as a young boy, Palestinian construction worker Ahmad Shweikeh studies his son’s careful penmanship. This classroom may be closed Friday, leaving 9-year-old Laith with nowhere to study.

Shweikeh, 38, says he wants Laith — a shy boy, top of his class — to become a surgeon.

“I never expected this,” Shweikeh said. “I watched some of my classmates from here become engineers and doctors. I hoped Laith would follow in their footsteps."

The school is one of six across east Jerusalem run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees called UNRWA. Israeli soldiers in riot gear showed up at the schools last month and ordered them to shut down within 30 days. Now parents worry that their children will lose precious opportunities to learn. And they fret for their children's safety if they are made to enroll in Israeli schools.

The closure orders come after Israel banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil earlier this year, the culmination of a long campaign against the agency that intensified following the Hamas attacks on Israel Oct. 7, 2023.

UNRWA is the main provider of education and health care to Palestinian refugees across east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. While UNRWA schools in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have not received closing orders, the closures have left in limbo the nearly 800 Palestinian students in first through ninth grade in east Jerusalem. Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city its unified capital.

The Israeli Ministry of Education says it will place the students into other Jerusalem schools. But parents, teachers and administrators caution that closing the main schools for the children of Palestinian refugees in east Jerusalem promises a surge in absenteeism.

For students in the Shuafat refugee camp, like Laith, switching to Israeli schools means crossing the hulking barrier that separates their homes from the rest of Jerusalem every day.

Some students aren’t even eligible to use the crossing, said Fahed Qatousa, the deputy principal of the UNRWA boys’ school in Shuafat. About 100 students in UNRWA schools in Shuafat have West Bank identifications, which will complicate their entry past the barrier, according to Qatousa.

“I will not in any way send Laith to a school where he has to go through a checkpoint or traffic,” Shweikeh said.

In a statement to The Associated Press, the Israeli Ministry of Education said it was closing the schools because they were operating without a license. The agency promised “quality educational solutions, significantly higher in level than that provided in the institutions that were closed.” It said that it would “ensure the immediate and optimal integration of all students.”

Qatousa fears the students will lose their chance to be educated.

“Israeli schools are overcrowded and cannot take a large number of students. This will lead to a high rate of not attending schools among our students. For girls, they will marry earlier. For boys, they will join the Israeli job market,” Qatousa said.

Laith remembers the moment last month when the troops entered his school.

“The soldiers talked to the schoolteachers and told them that they were going to close the school,” Laith said. “I don’t want the school to close. I want to stay here and continue to complete my education.”

His teacher, Duaa Zourba, who has worked at the school for 21 years, said teachers were “psychologically hurt” by Israel's order.

“Some of the teachers panicked. They started crying because of the situation, because they were very upset with that, with the decisions. I mean, how can we leave this place? We’ve been here for years. We have our own memories,” Zourba said.

Israel claims that UNRWA schools teach antisemitic content and anti-Israel sentiment. An UNRWA review of textbooks in 2022-2023 found that just under 4% of pages contained “issues of concern to U.N. values, guidance, or position on the conflict.”

An independent panel reviewed the neutrality of UNRWA after Israel alleged that a dozen of its employees in Gaza participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. The panel issued a series of recommendations, including that UNRWA adopt a “zero-tolerance policy" on antisemitic views or hate speech in textbooks.

The Israeli Education Ministry says parents have been directed to register their children at other schools in Jerusalem. Parents told the AP they have not done so.

Zourba said she still plans to hold exams as scheduled for late May. UNRWA administrators pledged to keep the schools open for as long as possible — until Israeli authorities force them to shut down.

The day AP reporters visited the school, Israeli police fired tear gas into the school’s front yard as boys played soccer outside. The gas billowed through the hallways, sending children sprinting indoors, drooling, coughing and crying.

Police spokesperson Mirit Ben Mayor said the forces were responding to rock-throwing inside the camp but denied targeting the school specifically.

As gas filtered through the school, Zourba donned a disposable mask and ran to check on her students.

“As teachers in Shuafat, our first job has always been to ensure the protection and the safety of our kids,” she said. “Whenever there’s a raid, we close windows. We close doors so that they don’t smell very heavy tear gas.”

“The goal,” she said, “is for the kids to always think of this school as a safe place, to remember that there’s a place for them.”

A woman passes the front entrance to the UNRWA Boys' School run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Students and teachers react to tear gas fired by Israeli Police into in the yard of the UNRWA Boys' School run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 29, 2025.(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Students sit at their desks at the UNRWA Boys' School run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Students play outside during recess at the UNRWA Boys' School run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Laith Shweikeh, 9, sits at his desk at the UNRWA Boys' School run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)