As the new school year began, Jerusalem’s church leaders banded together to insist that Israeli officials grant permits to teachers and staff traveling from elsewhere in the West Bank to teach in private schools in East Jerusalem.

For generations, Jerusalem’s private schools have been a bright spot in the holy city. Schools such as St George’s School, Schmidt’s Girls’ School, Collège Des Frères, Rosary Sisters’ School, Terra Sancta School, and others have graduated generations of Palestinians.

Academic and literary critic Edward Said, poet Ibrahim Tuqan (see Ibrahim Tuqan), philosopher Sari Nusseibeh (see Sari Nusseibeh), and the current Palestinian foreign minister Varsen Agabakian attended St. George’s School on Nablus Road, established in 1899 by the Anglican Church. On the same road, closer to the Old City, Schmidt’s Girls’ School was established by German Catholics in 1866 (see On Wings of Memory: Schmidt’s Girls School—Jerusalem’s Star School), counting among its graduates Palestinian photographer Karimeh Abbud, former Palestinian minister of education Lamis Alami, and poet Salma Jayyusi (see Salma Jayyusi). Just inside the New Gate, Collège Des Frères, a Lasallian school, was founded by the Christian Brothers in the 19th century, graduating the famous Palestinian heart surgeon Daoud Hanania, among many other luminaries.

In all, between schools and their branches, there are 15.1 All these private schools have another thing in common: they are Christian schools, run by churches and Christian organizations. But they educate Palestinian students of all denominations. The body that oversees them is called the General Secretariat of Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem. This body represents Christian schools of all denominations in Jerusalem, including Melkite, Lutheran, and Anglican schools. They are a subsidiary of the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land. They work to defend the Christian schools.2 As such, the stance taken by the General Secretariat is, in effect, one endorsed by the heads of churches.

But when the current 2026–27 school year began on September 1, 2026, the doors of these influential schools were shuttered. Instead of welcoming new and returning students, Jerusalem’s private Christian schools went on strike.

Veteran Palestinian staff living in Bethlehem or Ramallah—only a few miles away—had been denied the necessary permits, issued by the Israeli military, to enter the city through checkpoints and the Separation Wall (see Closure and Access to Jerusalem). These staff members had routinely been granted entry permits, for the most part, since they began to be required for Palestinian Authority (PA) ID holders decades ago, in the early 1990s.

This year, however, according to Father Ibrahim Faltes, head of the General Secretariat of Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem, although all 120 teachers were issued permits valid through December 31, 2026, 50 staff (including maintenance and security staff) were denied them, prevented from coming to work on the first day of school, because they were unable to present the entry permits at the few large Israeli checkpoints that control Palestinian access to Jerusalem (see Checkpoints, Part 1).

School administrators were surprised by the timing of authorities’ refusal to issue permits—they were only notified of this decision 10 days before opening day—and naturally, even if they wanted to replace the staff, it was impossible to do so before the new term began. However, administrators had no interest in giving up on their cherished administrators and maintenance crews, who have been part of the Jerusalem Christian school ecosystem for decades.

Unanimously, the General Secretariat for Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem schools announced a strike on August 31, 2026, with the blessing of the parents and church leaders. Their statement read:

The permit regime for entry to Jerusalem is not a neutral administrative process. It is a deliberate act aimed at controlling which Palestinians enter and leave the city while also isolating Palestinian East Jerusalem from its natural and historic Palestinian environs, the larger West Bank (see Closure and Access to Jerusalem).

Jerusalem and Bethlehem are close geographically (a mere 5.5 miles apart); people traveling to the holy city are not crossing an international border. They are moving within areas under the same occupying force—whether from Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or elsewhere—in areas Israel occupied in 1967. In practice, a daily commute becomes a political act. If permits are withheld, the gate closes suddenly.

When permits are delayed, revoked, or simply not renewed at the start of a school year, the outcome is predictable: teachers cannot reach their classrooms, schools suspend classes or operate with reduced capacity, parents absorb the fallout, and students lose learning time—and stability—at a moment when routine matters most.

But the harm is not only logistical. It is also economic and systemic. There is also a financial component to this issue. Living standards in the West Bank beyond East Jerusalem are much lower. To hire only Jerusalem-based staff would require the private schools to compete with the public Israeli system and pay higher salaries. That could force schools to raise tuition—or face financial collapse. In addition, to fire their long-serving teachers and/or staff would also create deep bitterness and resentment among their extended families, who would be losing important streams of income and be excised from the city itself and therefore from the Jerusalem community. As well, those laid-off employees would not find equivalent employment anywhere in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education has warned that these measures form part of an effort to systemically weaken and dilute Palestinian national identity—including through curriculum imposition and preventing teachers from reaching schools, with independent Christian schools and those teaching the national Palestinian curriculum often facing particular pressure.

Education is one of the most direct ways a community reproduces language, history, and civic belonging. Blocking teachers or staff while, at the same time, changing the curriculum and implementing other administrative measures destabilizes Palestinian education, weakens national identity and societal cohesion, and renders an occupied society more malleable to overall control by the occupier.

Those who argue that this is only an “administrative crisis” ignore a long pattern. I was 12 years old when the 1967 War happened. In September, just three months after the occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israel attempted to impose its curriculum on Palestinian Jerusalemites. Parents refused to send their children to school—not because they rejected education, but because they feared their children would graduate with an Israeli Bagrut certificate that would be unacceptable in Arab and Muslim countries.

As a result, schools that normally enroll hundreds—sometimes thousands—opened with only a handful of their students. The rest moved to private schools in Ramallah and Bethlehem. My parents sent me to a school in neighboring Beit Jala in the West Bank instead of St. George’s in Jerusalem, where we lived.

It did not take long for Israel to rescind its ill-advised decision. It allowed what was at that time the Jordanian curriculum, which culminates in the Tawjihi matriculation exam to become the main curriculum for Jerusalem schools.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PA in Ramallah in the mid-1990s, the same schools shifted to a similar but Palestinian curriculum. High school students still matriculate via the Tawjihi.

Over the years, Israel has attempted to interfere in the Palestinian educational system in the city by targeting smaller issues. Israeli officials then outlawed Palestinian civics books. Students were sometimes stopped and their school bags searched if they still carried books printed by the Palestinian Ministry of Education, especially its civics and history books (see In the Latest Chapter of the Battle over Palestinian Education in Jerusalem, Authorities Search Children’s Book Bags).

In 2018, Israel passed Government Decision 3790, followed by Government Decision 880 in 2023. Both were five-year plans allocating millions of dollars of government funding, ostensibly to improving socioeconomic conditions in East Jerusalem. But even the 2023 government plan was explicit about its goal when it came to Palestinian education: to increase the percentage of East Jerusalem Palestinian students who study the Israeli (versus the Palestinian) curriculum from 24 to 45 percent.4 And funding has been used as a major instrument to force this change in various ways. For this current academic year (2026–27), Israel escalated this process considerably by requiring all new classes in Israeli-run municipal schools in East Jerusalem to use only the Israeli curriculum, including first and seventh grades, bringing the percentage of students studying this curriculum to 38 percent (see As a New School Year Begins, Palestinians in Jerusalem Decry Israel’s Growing Intrusion into the Education Realm).

Over time, the Palestinian collective resistance to these interventions weakened, and the Israelization of Palestinians in Jerusalem is gradually being imposed through educational interference, among other means.

Church leaders in Jerusalem have long felt Israeli pressures weakening their institutions and community, but this has intensified since the current Israeli government came to power in late 2022. These very real threats have helped them to overcome their theological differences and unite when necessary to respond. Individual religiously motivated hate crimes have been on the rise. Priests are commonly being spat on and cemeteries desecrated (see, among others, Bigoted Harassment of Christians in Jerusalem Increased in 2025).

And the Israeli-run municipality has also sought to alter long-standing precedents by taxing the churches. In 2018, the Israeli-run Jerusalem Municipality imposed arnona taxes on church-run organizations. Traditionally, churches had been exempt from property taxes under the Status Quo arrangements dating to the 19th century. Church leaders made a bold decision. They closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For three days, no local faithful, foreign pilgrim, or ordinary tourist could enter Christianity’s most important church where many believe that Jesus was buried.5 Eventually Israel backed down. When the same arnona tax threat returned a few years later, this time accompanied by the suspension of church bank accounts, a letter from church leaders was enough to reverse the decision and lift the freeze.

Now once again, church leaders acted in unity to protect their schools. With the support and steadfastness of school administrators and students’ families, the educational strike produced results. Israel relented and issued the needed permits for staff to enter Jerusalem unconditionally.

On September 3, Jerusalem’s schools opened for a half day as they began the gradual process of returning to a normal school schedule with the dozens of affected teachers and staff. The unified support of church leaders was thus key to reopening the schools and continuing the school year, with all its important benefits for these students.