Rundown school for Palestinian children awaits US aid

When Joe Biden was elected president, residents of the tiny hilltop village of Jaba in the occupied West Bank cheered.

They hope the new US president will restore funding to a project to transform a rundown school in their village into a modern facility by adding an impressive three-story building with a library, a new science lab, more classrooms, an office for social workers and a shaded basketball court.

Work on the project stopped in 2019 after the Trump administration effectively ended aid to Palestinians.

Jaba, home to about 1,300 residents, is near Bethlehem on a series of small rolling hills that straddle Israel and a string of settlements. It has few businesses, its sole medical clinic operates one day a week, and its streets are narrow. It also suffers from a housing shortage because it is in an area where Israel rarely allows new construction.

The original plan to expand the school would have represented one of the village’s most significant upgrades in the past decade. It would have allowed the school to increase its student body from 80 to 250, including 50 girls.

“We hope Biden will find a way to rectify the cruel decision to halt funding to the school,” said Jaba’s mayor, Diab Mashala, sipping coffee in his spacious living room. “It is vital to the future of our children.”

Many Jaba residents were excited about the school’s expansion because it would have made grades 11 and 12 (UK year 12 and 13) available in the village. Students in those grades must travel to a larger school in the neighboring village of Surif, a 1.5 mile journey that parents complain can be dangerous because of occasional assaults by ultranationalist settlers.

“I would feel much less anxious if my son could learn in our village,” said Muheeb Abu Louha, whose son studies in Surif.

Along the trek between the villages, students must bypass a large roadblock — an orange gate surrounded by piles of burned trash and mounds of dirt — and then walk the rest of the way or hail a taxi or minibus. The only other option is a circuitous 30 minute car ride.

Humam al-Tos, a senior, said settlers have hurled stones at him more than once.

“It’s terrifying,” said Mr al-Tos, 18, who hopes to study mechanical engineering in Turkey. “When the army comes, they stop them. But when the army isn’t in the area, they do what they want.”

The Israeli military would not say whether it was aware of settlers attacking students between Jaba and Surif, but said it “does not stand by” when it witnesses violence. And on a warm day in mid-February uniformed boys and girls walked along the narrow road without incident.

The roadblock has not been removed, Israeli security officials said, because the road does not meet Israel’s safety requirements and the Palestinian Authority must submit to Israel a plan to repair it before any efforts to reopen the road can begin.

Palestinian officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The school itself is a symbol — one example of how the Palestinians hope the United States will restore relations with them.

During a recent tour of the partially built structure in Jaba, layers of dirt, dust and trash were collecting in its interior, rebar protruded from its rooftop, and walls of exposed concrete blocks appeared to be weathered.

In late February, the United Nations Development Program and the Education Cannot Wait fund solicited bids for completing a small part of the project, but program officials said while they would work to make an 11th-grade (UK year 12) classroom available, there were no funds to construct a 12th-grade (UK year 13) one. It also said it would install a multipurpose room and a canteen.

For handicapped students, the project is crucial because it would be much easier not to have to travel to Surif. “Finishing high school here would be a difference-maker for me,” said Khader Abu Latifa, 14, a ninth grader who has a muscle-related disease.

Khader started walking at the age of 8, but he still struggles to take steps. He said he hoped his father would drive him to Surif when he entered 12th grade (UK year 13), but worried the older man would not always be available to give him a ride.

And for a handful of girls, the school project embodies their only hope to obtain an education.

Several religiously conservative families in the village refuse to allow their daughters to study in other towns, forcing them to drop out before completing high school, said Mashala. “Giving these girls the option to complete their studies could be transformative for them,” he said.

But while a number of people in Jaba say they are optimistic that the Biden administration will restore the needed funding, bipartisan legislation known as the Taylor Force Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, could complicate efforts to do so.

The act restricts the US government’s ability to disburse aid that “directly benefits” the Palestinian Authority as long as the authority pays salaries to families of Palestinian security prisoners and slain attackers.

Analysts, however, said that what “directly benefits” the Palestinian Authority must be defined by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Would funding construction of this school, which is controlled by the Palestinian government, be considered direct support of the Palestinian Authority? It may or may not be,” said Joel Braunold, an expert on US law surrounding foreign aid to the Palestinians. “It is up to the secretary of state to decide.”

A State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US looks forward to resuming economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians but would do so in a manner consistent with relevant US law.

The Palestinian Authority hasn’t announced plans for any significant reforms to its highly popular payment system in the coming months.

The New York Times