The fight to preserve Palestinian identity in the schools of East Jerusalem—under Israeli control—is heating up as administrators prepare for the coming school year.

Israeli authorities are targeting Palestinian private schools in Jerusalem that still teach the Palestinian matriculation curriculum, Tawjihi, which includes lessons about Palestinian history and identity and is accepted at Palestinian and Arab universities. They also are trying to prevent these schools from hiring teachers from outside of Jerusalem.

Richard Zananiri, principal of St. George’s School in East Jerusalem, tells Jerusalem Story that these attacks are existential for more than a dozen private schools that, for decades, have been staffed by teachers from nearby Palestinian cities like Bethlehem and Ramallah. “Twenty-eight percent of our teachers and 10 out of 11 teachers of the higher grades (11th and 12th grades) have been with us for ages, and have taught our 800 students for decades,”1  he says. Out of 267 teachers, about 25 to 30 percent of the teaching staff at private schools in Jerusalem live outside the Israeli city boundaries, created when Israel illegally occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.

Historically, Jerusalem’s exurbs, mostly Palestinian villages and towns, were integral parts of the central city. The creation of Israel on Palestinian land in 1948, the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and its later annexation in 1980, and the establishment of a closure regime (see Closure and Access to Jerusalem) and later a Separation Wall (see The Separation Wall) have gradually severed these communities from one another.

Now Israel is instituting new barriers. Zananiri says preparing for the coming school year is an impossible mission.

“It is April, and I have no idea who my teachers will be when the next academic year begins. We have two major problems,” the principal explains. “First, there is a major question mark over whether the Israeli military authorities will issue travel permits to [allow teachers to] cross the checkpoints leading to Jerusalem.” Israeli officials tried last December to renege on 171 travel permits, but a successful seven-day strike at the beginning of the school year forced the government to provide them (see Private Christian Schools in Jerusalem Strike over “Humiliation Permits”). On March 10, the Ministry of Education sent a letter to school administrators informing them that only teachers residing within the municipal boundaries will be eligible to teach in Jerusalem schools beginning in the fall of 2026.2

A much more difficult problem to navigate is a new law forbidding schools in Jerusalem to hire teachers who are not certified in Israel (see New Law Bans Graduates from Palestinian Universities from Employment in Israel’s Education Sector). For decades, Israeli authorities have accepted the credentials of teachers who graduated from Palestinian universities like Birzeit and Bethlehem Universities, located in other parts of the West Bank. But a new law reverses this arrangement. The letter from the Ministry of Education also informed school administrators that only teachers who hold Israeli-issued certificates will be eligible to teach in Jerusalem.3

In sum, no work permits will be issued to teachers who graduated from Palestinian universities and/or live outside the city boundaries. Jerusalem school administrators say that it is unfair for the law to apply retroactively to teachers who have been teaching and producing excellent students for decades. “Although we don’t agree to it, the Israeli law should not apply to veteran teachers who have a proven record,”4 said the principal of a private Christian school who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

A February 23 letter sent by school principals to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, calls for “working to provide fully funded scholarships at recognized universities, such as Jordanian and international universities, for our Christian students wishing to pursue specialized academic disciplines, particularly in fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, pure sciences, and certain specialized scientific disciplines that are in high demand and for which qualified teachers are difficult to find in the job market.”

The school principals say that these scholarships should “be contingent upon a clear commitment from the recipient students to return to teach in our schools for an agreed-upon period. This will ensure the development of a strategic reserve of qualified educational staff, transform our schools into academic hubs, and strengthen the continuity of our mission and the quality of education in the long term.”

It is not only Christian private schools impacted by the crisis, however. Other private schools affected include Dar Al-Tifel Al-Arabi (see Dar Al-Tifel Al-Arabi: Jerusalem’s Cornerstone of Culture and Education Endures despite Challenges), al-Iman, Dar al-Awlad, and Ibrahimi schools.

Israeli city officials claim that there are plenty of teachers available now to replace the rejected teachers. School principals, on the other hand, indicate that their experience cannot compare to their existing teaching staff who have given these private schools their excellent reputation for decades. Moreover, parents are paying tuition for private schools because of the quality of teaching and the overall educational experience, foregoing free public schools.

The abrupt and de facto firing of hundreds of teachers and the resulting loss of income will have a devastating effect. It will be difficult for these older teachers to find new jobs closer to home, and their pay will be a fraction of what they are accustomed to. The average Palestinian Jerusalemite teacher’s salary ranges from NIS 8,000 to 10,000 ($2,500–$3,600), whereas Palestinian teachers outside Jerusalem elsewhere in the West Bank earn around NIS 2,000 ($638). This will be a new blow after the economic downturn that Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have experienced since October 7, 2023, the ongoing closure of the West Bank and cancellation of work permits for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians there, and now the latest war on Iran (launched February 28, 2026) and its major impacts locally and in the wider region.

To find a solution, East Jerusalem private school heads are coordinating a strategic plan to reverse or, at minimum, suspend the new laws and regulations in order to start the upcoming school year without a disruptive teacher shortage.

They have responded to seemingly official statements that arrive unsigned and not on official letterhead by demanding a clear official position on why these teachers will not be allowed to teach. They plan to challenge decisions that interrupt excellent teaching in schools that have largely been safe and secure and have no record of any kind of politically motivated disturbances, the anonymous principal tells Jerusalem Story. Court challenges must wind their way through the system before a final decision can be rendered at the Israeli Supreme Court. That means the crisis may not be resolved until the end of the current academic year, jeopardizing a smooth September start.

The schools are also appealing to church leaders and European diplomats to intervene. International attention on Israel after the banning of the Latin Patriarch from holding Palm Sunday mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre earlier this month made some hopeful that an appeal to religious leaders and their constituents might succeed.

School managers met with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem as well as Orthodox, Armenian, Franciscan, and other church leaders at the Anglican Bishop Hussam Naum’s office a few weeks ago and raised the issue of the schools. Many teachers from Bethlehem and Ramallah are congregants, and preventing them to teach in ecumenical schools is a violation of religious freedom.

While not hiding their Palestinian identity, East Jerusalem private schools are known to be reserved in observing major public events or demonstrating. The schools go on strike for issues that are part of the Palestinian national consensus, such as the genocide in the Gaza Strip. On April 1, private schools joined a Jerusalem public strike against the Israeli Knesset’s decision to approve capital punishment specifically targeting Palestinians (see “Designed to Target Palestinians”: Legal Expert Explains Israel’s Death Penalty Bill).

Nevertheless, several school principals confided to Jerusalem Story that if the legal and religious interventions fail, they will have no choice but to use nonviolent protest to send a clear message that they will not agree to Israeli policies that harm their beloved and qualified teachers and their educational mission.

The schools are facing numerous other challenges to their operations. First, the overall cost of running private schools is greater than the tuition paid by parents, their main income. In addition, the content of the Palestinian Tawjihi high school curriculum and civics lessons are a constant source of interference from Israeli authorities.

There was a period when Palestinian school principals could go to the Israeli Ministry of Education and discuss their problems. But the current anti-Palestinian racism that prevails in Israel makes such an approach impossible. Many experts say, in fact, that the Ministry of Education is the source of the troubles facing East Jerusalem private schools, making it an unlikely destination for technical solutions that provide good education to Jerusalem’s communities.

Instead, the education system is being politicized as another arm of Israel’s national objectives. And the Palestinian community is paying the price.