While high school seniors and juniors will attend classes in Ashkelon due to bagrut matriculation exams, the remainder of the city’s students will remain home, the decision reached by the PTA, with parents rejecting calls from authorities to send their children to school. The PTA announced the decision to strike classes is open-ended.

Parents explain “nothing is like it was in the past and we must push the government”. They explain the children are truly scared, more than in the past, since now they feel the IDF offensive accomplished nothing, seeking to understand why their lives are once again being turned into a war zone.

The army and Ashkelon City Hall released messages that from their perspective schools are expected to operate but parents are unwilling to hear of it, stating they will not permit business as usual they return to daily rocket attacks, expected to endure and accept the reality as if there is no solution.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)