At around 10:00am, on Saturday, 18 October 2008, Arafa Nimir as-Sawaf, 17, fell from the 3rd floor of the three-story Imam Shafii School in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza.
He was admitted to the al-Shifa Hospital and diagnosed with various fractures in his body.
He was moved later to the hospital's Intensive Care Unit.
According to the investigations of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Ad Dameer Association for Human Rights, Arafa as-Sawaf fell from the School's 3rd floor when he was trying to escape from a teacher that was trying to beat him.
While the student was gripping on sanitation pipes in an attempt to escape off the school's roof, the teacher pursued and beat him on his hands and legs.
A testimony by the student's brother, Nimir as-Sawaf, who goes to the same school, confirmed that the same teacher beat Arafa before the break, but also returned to chase him after the break.
The two organizations note with concern the increasing number of complaints by people over school violence, especially the violence of teachers and schools' administration directed against students in a number of schools.
The two organizations received information supporting the belief that teachers conduct practices that dehumanize children at school regularly.
Such practices violate the regulations that afford protection for children and their personal dignity under the Palestinian Child Law.
They also represent a breach the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Al Mezan and Ad Dameer express their deep sorrow for the injury of as-Sawaf, and vehemently condemn each and every violent practice by teachers and principals against children at schools.
The two organizations are highly concerned with the lack of professional competency of those who use violence against children at school, and with their violations of the standards of human rights and the Palestinian law that prohibit school violence.
The two organizations consider the spread of such practices an indicator of the lack or shortage of governmental monitoring and investigation.
Government duties require that it activates the monitoring and accountability tools to prevent school violence directed at children.
The two organizations call the concerned authorities, including the Ministry of Education, to open an investigation into the incident and punishing whoever to be found guilty of negligence or breaking the law.
Al Mezan and Ad Dameer stress that the objectives of education extend beyond the learning process to the promotion of human values and national character of learners.
School violence contradicts the objective of promoting human sense of dignity, tolerance and acceptance of the other.
Children who are forced to lose the sense of dignity to violence and intimidation are expected to face serious difficulty to think freely, form opinions and express them as adults.
The two organizations call the Ministry of Education to activate monitoring tools and deal strictly with those who practice physical or psychological violence against children.
They call for banning any procedures that would dehumanize children and considering training incompetent teachers so that teacher-child violence will not turn into a phenomenon or a feature of our schools.
End Ad Dameer Association for Human Right Al Mezan Center for Human Rights