On the fourteenth of December of each year, Palestine celebrates Palestinian Teacher’s Day, which is a national occasion in which the people of the country express their reverence and appreciation for the Palestinian teacher, the bearer of the message of the prophets and the torch of salvation from ignorance and slavery, and an expression of their appreciation for his pioneering role.

This day carries a national symbolism whose roots are linked to a stage of struggle that began in 1972, when dozens of teachers were subjected to oppression and abuse at the hands of the Israeli occupation authorities, for their national role of protecting the educational process from the interference of the occupier, and his attempts to impose guardianship over it, in addition to their demands for their fair union rights, all the way to Until December 14, 1982.

At that time, the first teachers’ march was launched from the Expatriates School in Al-Bireh, and its participants were subjected to severe beatings, assaults with excessive force, and arrest at the hands of Israeli occupation soldiers. Among those who were attacked were the leaders of the General Committee for Teachers, which was formed through regional committees of school teachers in each governorate, after which the General Committee for Teachers announced a successive strike for 75 days, which led to the occupation authorities’ defeat and submission to their demands.

Palestinian teachers made great sacrifices to prevent the passage of the occupation authorities’ plans to Judaize education and falsify Palestinian history and geography, and all attempts to interfere in the educational process. They recorded grave positions and challenges during the first Palestinian popular uprising, during the continued closure of Palestinian schools and universities by the occupation authorities, by resorting to popular education, from In order to preserve the progress of the national educational process, defying the might of the occupation, which they tried to suppress harshly and brutally, in addition to their national and trade union struggle in defending the cause of our Palestinian people, to rise from among their ranks the martyrs, fall the wounded, and throw many of them into the occupation prisons.

On this occasion, the Ministry of Education issued the following statement: We remember our departed martyred teachers, to have mercy on them, and we extend our salutes to all our male and female teachers, who continue their active presence in the process of giving and building generations, preserving the value system, and creatively combining the provision of knowledge and confronting all attempts to undermine them. Identity.

This day comes in extremely complex circumstances in Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, where the occupation’s violations against our teachers continue, and perhaps the presence of more than two hundred martyrs of educational personnel in the Gaza Strip, and dozens of teachers detained in the West Bank, and hundreds of teachers prevented from reaching their schools. The almost daily exposure to teachers in Jerusalem schools, the Jordan Valley schools, Masafer Yatta and other areas are all practices that fall within the framework of targeting the educational learning process.

She expressed her pride in the teachers who continue to give and prove their affiliation, through continuous giving in person or remotely, as the Palestinian teacher has always proven to be a difficult number. In this context, we salute our teachers, at a time when some of Gaza’s teachers in shelter centers continue to provide educational events and activities to our students, and Jerusalem’s teachers assume their role in protecting our curriculum and preserving values, and our Palestinian teacher supports the choice of education as a tool for liberation.

It called on international institutions, specifically UNESCO, to assume its responsibilities to protect Palestinian teachers from continued targeting by an occupation that targets the Palestinian education sector with all its components.