For the children of Tuba, a Palestinian village in South Hebron Hills, attending school means walking more than ten kilometers with an armed IDF escort, to bypass an illegal settlement whose residents regularly threaten and attack them. I was one of those kids

On the first day of school in the occupied West Bank this September, students living in Tuba, a Palestinian village in South Hebron Hills, wait for Israeli soldiers to accompany them to school.

Their route takes them through the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Maon, built on privately-owned Palestinian land between Tuba and the adjoining village of At-Tuwani. The military escort is not only necessary but, by now, routine.