School erects mourning tent for Gaza

Students of Jaffa high school hold ceremony displaying images of death from Gaza fighting

Meirav Shlomo
Published: 01.21.09, 17:33 / Israel News

"It's hard to continue to teach at this school with all the hatred towards us," a Jewish teacher at Jaffa's Ironi Yud Bet high school told Ynet Wednesday, following the school's decision to erect a mourning tent for those killed in Gaza during the military operation.

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In addition to the tent, a ceremony was held for the student body, during which memorial candles were lit and Palestinian flags were raised.

A large television screen was present at the ceremony, on which bloody scenes from the fighting in Gaza previously shown by the Arab press were displayed. The stunned teachers protested the brutal images shown to the young students.

Though the tent was dismantled at the end of the ceremony, the Jewish teachers say they still feel estranged from the students. "It was difficult during the period of fighting in Gaza, and it only got worse after this ceremony," one teacher told Ynet.

"We feel the hatred in the eyes of the Arab teachers and faculty. I am afraid of the new situation, and it is hard to continue at an all-Arab school when we are such a small minority of Jews," she added.

Principal of Ironi Yud Bet, Abd Elhalim Satel, said in response that "the student council decided on a number of activities, including a lecture of identification and a mourning tent in the school yard. The junior high lit candles in memory of the children killed in the war, and spelled out 'babies of Gaza' with them."

He added, "This isn't the only time Jaffa is heating up over the fighting in Gaza. Recently there have been cases of violent protests that deteriorated into riots, black flags hung in the youth center, and an outbreak of violence between Jewish and Arab students in Ironi Zayin school."

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