Two teens arrested for leaving stun grenade as ‘gift’ for school principal

A pair of minors aged 15 and 17 were arrested Thursday for leaving a bag with a stun grenade at the entrance to a school in Ramle.

Police in the central city were notified of the suspicious bag by the school’s guard, who had prevented the suspects from entering.

According to reports, one of the suspects asked to be let in to talk with the principal but was refused. He then reportedly left the bag with the stun grenade in it and told the guard it was meant as a “gift” to the principal from his friend.

The teenagers fled the scene but were detained shortly afterward. It was not immediately clear if they were students at the school.

Police said the force will decide whether to ask the court to extend the suspects’ remand following an investigation.

The grenade left by the teenagers was taken to a police forensic labs to determine the scope of danger it could have posed, according to the Ynet news site.

An illustrative photo of stun grenades. (Israel Police)

In November, a 16-year-old student was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his principal in the leg at his high school in Kfar Bialik, near Haifa in northern Israel. The principal, 51, was lightly injured.

According to a study published last year by the School of Education at Ono Academic College, violence in Israeli schools has spiked in recent years.

The study found that 60 percent of students reported an increased feeling of being excluded by fellow schoolmates and 38% reported recently experiencing violence. Some 55% of participating students said they had noticed a rise in violence in all its forms – physical, verbal and online bullying on social media.

According to a survey published in 2019 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, middle schools in Israel were six times as violent as those in most other developed Western countries.

The results showed that 26 percent of middle school principals in Israel reported “acts of intimidation or bullying” at least once a week, nearly twice the average in other OECD countries at 14%.