Children from Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank protest after settlers erect a fence blocking access to school.
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Umm al-Khair, occupied West Bank – Just old enough to utter complete sentences in a small, wavering voice, Masa Hathaleen, five, stands before the barbed wire fence blocking her path to school. “I am Masa,” she pleaded. “Please open the road for us. We want to go to school. We are not doing anything wrong. We just have our books. We love our school.”
Masa was one of dozens of children, book bags in tow, who marched on Sunday morning towards the fence that now blocks the route the youngsters of the Bedouin community of Umm al-Khair have used for decades to reach their school in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The schoolchildren held up posters, sang songs and chanted in English at soldiers who watched from the other side: “Open the road!”
