Parents at US high school sue over field trip that pushed students to wear hijabs

Parents at Palo Alto High School in California are suing the school for taking students on a field trip to a mosque, where students were allegedly pushed to wear hijabs and given Qurans.

The trip was part of the school’s “Social Justice Pathway” and the trip framed Islam as aligned with social work, The New York Post reports.

The parents’ children are Jewish, Hindu and Zoroastrian, the report says.

The lawsuit is brought by a group called the Plaintiff Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools.

The Palo Alto Unified School District and the high school principle are also named in the lawsuit.

The students on the trip also met Zahra Billoo of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the report says.

Billoo has a history of extremist statements against “Zionists.”

A school administrator tells The San Francisco Chronicle that, according to the school district’s policy, says that lessons about religion must be neutral, academic, and not devotional, and would not comment on pending litigation.

Settlers reportedly torch Palestinian fields in one of several attacks across West Bank

Settlers torched fields on the outskirts of the central West Bank Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya on Monday evening, the official Palestinian Authority Wafa news outlet reports.

Palestinian media also reports that the IDF held up a Palestinian ambulance that was trying to reach the village in order to put out the fire.

There was no immediate comment from the IDF.

فلسطين.. النيران تلتهم سهل بلدة ترمسعيا شمال رام الله بعد إشعالها من قبل مستوطنين pic.twitter.com/2Ua4Q65omL — التلفزيون العربي (@AlarabyTV) August 17, 2026

فلسطين.. النيران تلتهم سهل بلدة ترمسعيا شمال رام الله بعد إشعالها من قبل مستوطنين pic.twitter.com/2Ua4Q65omL

— التلفزيون العربي (@AlarabyTV) August 17, 2026

Turmus Ayya has been one of the Palestinian villages most frequently targeted by settlers, who have established several illegal outposts nearby. The vast majority of the village’s residents hold American citizenship, but they knocked the US government for not doing enough to protect them from the Israeli attacks, which go largely unpunished.

The alleged attack in Turmus Ayya was one of several that took place on Monday evening alone, according to Wafa.

Settlers also raided the northern West Bank Palestinian village of Beita and hurled stones at........

© The Times of Israel