Israeli forces blocked Palestinian teachers from arriving to to schools in , on the first day of class of the year on Monday.
in the villages of Jinba and Fakheet, part of the larger village conglomeration of Masafer Yatta, serving some 100 students from 13 villages.
"On Sunday, teachers tried to reach both schools to prepare for the first day of class on Monday," Nidal Younis, mayor of Masafer Yatta, told °®Âþµº. "Israeli forces stopped the teachers, forced them to go back and confiscated their vehicle."
"On Monday morning the teachers came back with an to celebrate the beginning of the school year but Israeli forces stopped them again," Younis said.
"The delegation and the teachers were stopped for more than an hour and a half before allowing them through," said the mayor. "The school day finally started, but several hours late."
The two schools , as they are built .
Last week an Israeli court ruled against an appeal filed by the Masafer Yatta community to save the two schools and 32 other structures, including a health clinic.
The move renews concerns about , which in the 1980s. by the Israeli supreme court after two decades of legal battles.
While Israel claims that Palestinians did not live permanently , affirm that the community lived in the area well before Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967.
In June that if carried out, the expulsion of Palestinians from Masafer Yatta would constitute a "war crime".
, after 83 US lawmakers signed a letter to the US secretary of State Antony Blinken, asking to stop the expulsion of Palestinians from Masafer Yatta.