Israeli authorities demolished a school in a southern West Bank village on Sunday, citing a court ruling that described it as “illegal and dangerous”, the demolition of which was condemned by the local European Union delegation that funded its construction, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Bulldozers moved in at dawn to destroy this small primary school located in Jabbet Ad-Dib, in the Bethlehem region, following the expiration of a two-month ultimatum to Israeli justice.

At the time of the court-ordered demolition, located in the Israeli part of the Jerusalem district, the modest structure was empty and the equipment had been removed.

Clashes broke out between villagers, who threw stones and set tires on fire, and Israeli security forces, who fired tear gas and stun grenades.

The school, which housed 45 children, was already destroyed in 2019 but was later rebuilt, Ahmed Nasser, an official at the Palestinian Ministry of Education, told AFP. He noted that on Monday, a tent will be set up to accommodate students with basic services, as well as water and electricity.

In a statement, Cogat, the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civilian activities in the Palestinian territories, said the building was “constructed illegally, without permission.” According to him, the building posed a “danger to the residents”, relying, in particular, on the conclusions of the engineer about the risk of the building collapsing.

Ahmed Nasser rejected this argument and emphasized the importance of such schools in isolated villages in the West Bank.

This prevents “displacement and forced evacuation of the population to the extent that Israel wants to confiscate these lands,” he said. “The population prevented him from doing that,” he says.

At the start of the legal complaint, Regavim, an Israeli non-governmental organization that supports colonization, on the other hand, assessed the construction as part of a Palestinian policy that seeks to “build a structure on an empty lot, declaring that it is a school, and then make its demolition a humanitarian issue.”

The EU delegation in the Palestinian territories said it was “dismayed” by the demolition, an “illegal under international law” practice, and asked the Israeli authorities to “respect children’s right to education”.

“Israel must stop all demolitions and evictions that only exacerbate the suffering of the Palestinian population and inflame existing tensions,” she added in a statement.

Nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967. About 490,000 Jewish settlers live there and in colonies that the UN considers illegal under international law, AFP noted.