Jerusalem schools to operate regularly as security fears partly addressed

Jerusalem’s high schools were set to operate regularly Monday, after Economy Minister Aryeh Deri approved a temporary measure allowing security guards to work longer hours due to the security situation in the capital and across the country.

Since last Thursday, the schools called a partial strike, ending sessions at 1:30 p.m. when security guards also finish their shifts. The closure was called after Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and the city’s parents association failed to reach an agreement with the Finance and Public Security ministries over the lack of funding.

On Monday, most schools were set to run until 4:30 p.m, the usual hour.

Deri, working with the Ministry of Public Security, the Israel Police and the Labor Union, issued the order on Sunday afternoon allowing for additional hours for security guards.

“Security guards have an important role in the struggle against terrorism in Israel, preserving order, and restoring a sense of tranquility and safety to the public,” Deri said in a statement. “Following the current increasing demand for security services, I have authorized an extension in the employment of security guards.”

Some 400 Jerusalem schools are defined by police as in need of permanent security, but declining budgets in recent years have cut short the number of hours in which guards are present at the schools.

Those three hours between 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. represent “a gap of over 20 million shekels in the security budget,” the Jerusalem Municipality said in a letter last week ahead of the strike..

For state schools, the strike included grades seven to 12. In the Haredi education system, only the girls’ high schools were on strike. In the Arab school system, those schools that had no security guards at all joined the strike.

On Sunday, all schools in the capital, including elementary schools and preschools were shut at 1:30 p.m.

The added security measure came a day after two more stabbing attacks by Palestinians injured at least five Israelis, one of them seriously, in separate assaults in the capital. Both attackers were killed by security forces.

Last week also saw a series of stabbing attacks in Jerusalem, elsewhere in Israel and in the West Bank in which at least 14 Israelis were injured.

On Sunday morning, a Palestinian woman tried to carry out a suspected suicide bombing outside the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, the first such incident since the current terror wave began. The would-be bomber was severely injured.

Hours later, four people were wounded, one seriously, when an Israeli-Arab man ran over a young female soldier and then proceeded to stab her and three other people in a terror attack near Hadera.

Palestinians have reacted violently over allegations that Israel has been seeking to curtail Muslim rights at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which houses the al-Aqsa Mosque, and to alter longstanding rules that ban Jews from praying there. The Israeli government has repeatedly denied the allegations, asserting that it is not planning to change the status quo at the flashpoint compound holy to both Jews and Muslims.