1.9.2025
To: Directors, Managers, and Staff of the Educational Psychological Services
Subject: Heavy ethical questions at the start of the school year
We begin the school year with a very heavy heart as human beings, and with heavy ethical questions as mental health and welfare professionals. On the one hand, we wish our children a fruitful and safe year with a continuous setting without interruptions, and on the other hand, we are appalled that simultaneously an entire population of children cannot start the year, learn, and develop. We speak out against the severe dehumanization towards the Palestinian and Arab population, which has extremely cruel manifestations and consequences: a war of extermination in Gaza, indiscriminate killing of innocents including children, and the destruction of infrastructures, among them the infrastructures of the education system. This is alongside violence and transfer in the West Bank which do not allow children to study in safety, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel students, whose distress and pain have become transparent and delegitimized, all the more so when it comes to coping with the worry, sorrow, and loss of family members who are in Gaza.
Below is data you should be aware of from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report, August 27, 2025, illustrating the immense harm to children, teachers, and educational institutions in Gaza: 658,000 school students without educational frameworks since October 7, 2023. 17,085 students and 739 teachers have been killed. Over 25,213 students and 3,091 teachers have been injured. 91.8% of schools will need to be rebuilt at the end of the war.
It is important to note that harming educational institutions is a war crime according to international law and conventions of which the State of Israel is a signatory. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has signed, obligates us to protect every child’s right to life, security, and education. This data reflects a severe moral and human flaw that goes beyond the political positions underlying the war.
We turn to you because you are the therapeutic and emotional system of the education system; we call on you to pay attention to the highly concerning racist climate existing today in schools, and to the messages being conveyed. To pay attention not to remain silent and cooperate with the indifference towards the fatal harm to children solely because they are of the “other” nationality. We turn to you as systemic care professionals, who understand best of all other professionals the importance of the broader context within which we operate and live. We believe in your power to influence society through schools and education systems and the lives and fate of the students during this difficult time. Our students need you, educators and care professionals who will serve as a moral compass for them. Those who have recently set an example for students of courage and social responsibility are school principals across the country, who stood up publicly and voiced clear moral stances to end the war and against the abandonment of the hostages.
We call upon you, preserve our professional moral and ethical climate, and the souls of our children. Make your voice heard! You have the ability to make moral and human thinking present within the Israeli education systems! Be a moral compass for us all and especially for the children who are about to take their seats in schools and educational frameworks today.
Hoping for better days when all children are safe and free to learn and develop. We will be happy to be at your disposal for any matter and to assist in any way so that your important voice will be heard!
Sincerely, The ‘Silence is a Crime’ Forum