A 14-year-old boy was shot dead outside his school in the occupied West Bank by an Israeli reservist, the latest killing in a pattern of attacks that human rights groups describe as a systematic assault on Palestinian education.
Aws al-Naasan, a ninth-grade student at Mughayyir Boys’ Secondary School, was struck in the head just outside the western gate of the school on 21 April. He collapsed instantly, bleeding heavily, as his friends rushed to carry his body out of the line of fire, leaving a trail of blood along the school wall. Video footage from inside the building showed terrified children and teachers crouching in stairwells, while another clip captured the shooter, a reservist in partial military uniform, taking aim from the hillside above the school.
The same man also killed Jihad Abu Naim, 36, the younger brother of an English teacher at the school. Abu Naim’s wife is heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child, a girl due this month. His brother, Waheed Abu Naim, had earlier approached the armed men to ask why they had come, but was told to go back and saw a gun raised.
Aws’s father, Hamdi al-Naasan, was himself killed by a settler in January 2019, shot in the back as he tried to rescue an injured neighbour. The teenager’s teachers had devoted extra attention to him in the years that followed. “We tried to make Aws feel safe, and ensure he had some rules in his life, to protect him from the impact of losing his father,” Waheed Abu Naim said. “Then we lost him.”
The Israeli military said the reservist opened fire after stones were thrown at his vehicle, and that troops did not accompany him at the time of the killing but arrived afterwards. However, video footage and bloodstains showed the shooter was several hundred metres from the nearest road when he killed Aws, and eyewitnesses have reported that Israeli security forces were present at the scene. The reservist has since been dismissed from his reserve duties, his weapon confiscated, and an investigation initiated, according to the military. At least nine Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of 2026 by settlers later identified as reservist soldiers, a convergence the United Nations Human Rights office has described as reflecting the “militarised and state-shielded” nature of settler violence.
A wave of violence against schools
The killing in Mughayyir was not an isolated incident. A few hours later, settlers used bulldozers to demolish a British- and European-funded school in Hammamat al-Maleh, a village of about 40 people in the northern Jordan Valley. Four classrooms, school toilets and two playground areas were razed into a heap of twisted metal and crumpled plastic, scattered with ruined books. The French government, which contributed some of the funding, has demanded compensation from the Israeli government, calling the continuation of settlement policy a serious violation of international law. The school, located on Latin Church land, had been previously vandalised by settlers who stole equipment, smashed solar panels and damaged security cameras. It was one of the last functioning institutions in an area where much of the shepherding community has already been displaced.
In the south Hebron Hills, on 13 April, Israeli settlers placed razor wire across the road leading to the school attended by Palestinian children from Umm al-Khair village, blocking students from crossing ever since. Residents described the road as a “lifeline” connecting children to education and a sense of normal life, and said the purpose was to pressure the community to leave its land. When adults and children staged a sit-in protest at the fence, Israeli soldiers fired teargas at them. The alternative route proposed by the Israeli military is significantly longer and passes near a settlement outpost, raising safety concerns. The village’s plight was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the shooting in Mughayyir fitted a “consistent pattern” of deadly attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers pursuing a campaign of ethnic cleansing. It stated that “Israeli militias raid Palestinian villages in order to provoke confrontation and elicit a response, which they then use as a pretext for lethal gunfire and terror attacks on residents attempting to defend their homes”, and that these attacks are “carried out with the declared objective of forcibly displacing thousands of Palestinian residents from their homes”. B’Tselem views settler violence as an unofficial arm of state violence, with Israeli authorities aiding and abetting settlers in harming Palestinians and taking their land. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, settler attacks accounted for approximately 75% of displacement across the West Bank in 2026.
Mughayyir, a village of about 3,000 people, is encircled by eight settler outposts, including Adei Ad, which was legalised by Israel in December. Residents reported dozens of attacks in 2025 alone, including shootings, arson and vandalism, and the main road to the village has been frequently closed by a military gate. In January 2026, another 14-year-old, Mohammed al-Naasan, was killed in the village by live ammunition during an Israeli military raid, a killing confirmed by the Israeli military.
Education under assault
In the immediate aftermath of the killings, classes in Mughayyir were suspended for a week as parents and teachers weighed hopes for the future against fears for their children’s lives. “We want to go back to school, but our families are worried,” said Ahmed Abu Ali, a friend and classmate of the murdered teenager. A checkpoint regularly set up on the road below the boys’ school has long frightened and distracted students, and soldiers sometimes block teachers who live outside the village from reaching their classes.
The assault on education extends far beyond the West Bank. In Gaza, more than 600,000 school-age children are approaching the end of a third year without formal in-person education. According to the UN, Israeli attacks there have killed at least 792 teachers and 18,639 students, and damaged or destroyed nine out of ten school buildings. UNICEF reports that 95% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, many serving as displacement centres. A report by the University of Cambridge and others has indicated that the war has set back Palestinian children’s education by five years. Across the occupied West Bank, approximately 140,000 children face barriers to accessing education, with multiple schools facing demolition orders.
James Elder, global spokesperson for UNICEF, said the attacks on Palestinian children’s education were “not isolated incidents”. He added that the impact of recurring, targeted attacks on education “follows children out of the classroom”, affecting their home lives and sleep. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemned the killings as part of an escalating pattern of armed settler assaults carried out under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces, reflecting what it called a serious level of support for such attacks.
