BETHLEHEM, Dozens of Palestinians today suffocated as Israeli forces targeted a school complex in Tuqu‘ town, east of Bethlehem, according to a local source.

The town mayor Musa Sha‘er said that the gun-toting soldiers deployed in the vicinity of the schools complex at the northern entrance of the southern West Bank town provoked confrontations with the students and residents and showered them with volleys of tear gas canisters, causing scores to suffocate from excessive tear gas inhalation.

In late September, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy died after falling from a significant height while running away from Israeli soldiers in the town.

Rayyan Yaser Suleiman was coming home from school with other pupils in the town when troops gave chase, and he died on the spot from fear, his father Yasser said.

A medical official who inspected the boy’s body told Reuters that it bore no sign of physical trauma and that the death appeared consistent with heart failure.

Attacks on education by Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers in the Palestine constitute grave violations of children’s rights to education and development. These attacks are particularly prevalent in the most vulnerable areas of the West Bank – Area C, H2 and Jerusalem.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFO AGENCY