Despite calls from City Hall and IDF Homefront Command officials to send children to school, Ashkelon’s parents teachers association announced it will be continuing its open-ended strike, defying the call to continue ‘life as usual’.

PTA officials are calling on the national government to fortify all schools, insisting the ongoing Katyusha rocket attacks from Gaza demand the city’s children are protected in their classrooms. PTA officials are unwilling to accept the current reality in which many of the schools do not offer protection against rocket attacks, prompting the move to strike schools in the hope of pressuring the national government into action.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)