Christian schools across Jerusalem indefinitely suspended classes starting Tuesday, 1 September 2026, after Israeli authorities failed to renew entry permits for more than 70 teachers and staff who live in the occupied West Bank.
The General Secretariat for Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem announced the decision on Monday, saying the permits were withheld "suddenly and without prior notice," making it impossible to begin the academic year safely.
The shutdown affects thousands of students at Christian schools in the city and highlights the broader difficulties faced by Palestinians who hold West Bank IDs and require Israeli-issued permits to cross checkpoints into East Jerusalem.
The disruption also comes amid rising reported harassment against Christian communities and clergy in Israel and the occupied territories, lending wider significance to the administrative dispute.
The Secretariat said school attendance would be halted "until the necessary permits for teachers and staff are reissued and renewed." It stressed that the institutions remain committed to protecting students' right to education, but the permit situation "makes it impossible to ensure a safe and stable start" to the academic year.
No timeline was provided for when the permits might be restored, and the schools described the delay as indefinite.
The school closures follow a series of high-profile incidents targeting Christian communities. In April, an Israeli soldier was filmed smashing a Jesus statue with a sledgehammer in the Lebanese town of Dibil while another soldier recorded the act. The video triggered an international outcry and a military investigation, after which the two soldiers were removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days in military detention.
In early August, six religious Jews, five of them minors, were arrested after spitting and banging on the entrance of the St. James Monastery in Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter and throwing stones at the compound wall. Months earlier, an Israeli man violently assaulted a French nun on Mount Zion, leaving her with a head injury.
Members of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem have also reported attacks, including nuns being pelted with stones. Sister Elizaveta of the Mission described one incident as "not just to throw to scare a person, it was such a blow to defeat."
According to the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), a Jewish-Israeli watchdog organization, reported anti-Christian harassment more than doubled in the second quarter of 2026, with spitting attacks accounting for the majority of cases.
In early August, Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen called for the resignation of US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, accusing him of failing to protect American citizens and interests and criticizing his response to mounting violence in the West Bank, including attacks on Palestinian Christian communities.
Classes remain suspended indefinitely, and the schools have said they will resume only once the necessary permits for teachers and staff are reissued and renewed. Israeli authorities have not publicly announced when or whether the permits will be restored, and additional confirmation on the timeline is still awaited.
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