Students in Bedouin village have school day cut short after police fire tear gas nearby

Elementary school students in the southern Bedouin village of Tarabin al-Sana were forced to go home early today after police used tear gas near the building, one of the residents tells The Times of Israel.

In footage from the town, around a dozen police officers are seen shooting what appear to be tear gas canisters near a fenced-in basketball court.

Police still operate regularly in Tarabin al-Sana after the raid two months ago

Residents say officers launched tear gas near an elementary school, hurting students and forcing them to go home early. Police say they were responding to stone-throwing

Footage from today: pic.twitter.com/96FPv71Ztr

— charlie summers (@cbsu03) February 16, 2026

According to resident Munder Tarabin, the students, some of them as young as five years old, were hurt by the substance, which spread throughout the school grounds after police used it at around 1:30 p.m. “Police shouldn’t be behaving this way towards children,” he says.

A Southern District police spokesman tells The Times of Israel that police were forced to use riot control weapons in response to stone-throwing by residents during an operation in the village. The goals of the operation were not immediately clear.

Tarabin al-Sana was subject to a massive police raid, which began in December and lasted into January this year, after several residents of the town allegedly set fire to cars in nearby Jewish towns.

During the police raid, a man was killed on his doorstep by an officer. Police claim the man posed a threat to forces, but the slain man’s son said at the time that he was shot without provocation, and that police tampered with evidence after the fact.

Investigators in the State Attorney’s Office are currently probing the officer, alongside several other suspects, in connection with the incident.