‘Dirty Arabs’: Sakhnin school principal describes attack on his students

A middle school principal whose students were allegedly pepper-sprayed by yeshiva students in the north earlier today says his pupils were called “dirty Arabs” during the incident.

“They threw all sorts of things, kicked and spit on them, called them ‘dirty Arabs,'” Kamal Abu Younis, who runs Ibn Khaldun Middle School in the northern city of Sakhnin, tells The Times of Israel.

“It’s a shocking situation, I’ve been working in education for 40 years and I’ve never encountered such a case,” he adds.

Fourteen 8th graders and two of their teachers were taken to the hospital with light injuries as a result of the violence, which broke out after the group of middle schoolers encountered the yeshiva students while hiking near Beit She’an.

Police arrested the alleged assailants — three students from a West Bank yeshiva who had been hiking in the area with their principal.

לפני שעה קלה חבורה של גזענים תקפה תלמידי בית הספר אבן ח’לדון בסכנין, בפארק המעיינות.
13 תלמידים נפצעו, ושני מורים פונו לבית החולים.

שוחחתי לפני דקות אחדות עם כמאל אבו יונס, מנהל בית הספר, ואמרתי לו בבירור: לא נשתוק מול הטרור הגזעני הזה.

התקיפות נגד אזרחים ערבים, רק בשל היותם… pic.twitter.com/vdSTsh0DKB

— איימן עודה أيمن عودة Ayman Odeh (@AyOdeh) February 4, 2026

The yeshiva principal was also detained for questioning after arguing with police over his students’ arrest, according to Honenu, a right-wing legal aid organization representing the suspects.

Nati Rom, an attorney with Honenu, claims the three were “attacked by a group of Arabs” during their hike. “The officers who came to the scene chose to violently arrest three students,” he says.

Meanwhile, Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh decries the incident as “racist terror” in a social media post.

“The attacks on Arab citizens, just because they are Arab, have become a daily occurrence. But a person is not born racist. The racist and inciting government is the main culprit,” he says.