In a tighter security convoy than many government officials get, an army jeep scouted the path, followed by two soldiers on foot flanking the children while a police jeep brought up the rear.

The children, carrying oversized backpacks emblazoned with cartoon characters, walked in silence as they approached a small clutch of trees that hides Havat Maon. "With the soldiers, at least sometimes I don't feel afraid," said 9-year-old Tarek Jundiyye.

But even the armed escorts have not completely stopped the harassment.

As the children walked home one recent afternoon, a settler hiding in the trees screamed curses in Hebrew at them. A soldier stopped to yell back.

On another day, a settler waited for the soldiers to finish escorting the children and then harangued them for helping Arabs. Sometimes, the settlers throw stones, according to the children's families.

When asked about the attacks, a resident of Havat Maon, who only gave his name as Gilad, said by telephone: "This is our country, and they (Palestinians) have no right to be here." He then hung up.

The attacks appear part of broader tensions in the area. A land dispute between Palestinian shepherds and the Maon settlers turned violent in 1998, when hardline settler Dov Dribben was killed and a Palestinian was shot in chest.

The settlers later forced the villagers to stop using the road running past Havat Maon, the main passage in the area, Omar Jundiyye said. "They are trying to get every Arab to flee," he said.

Before the fighting started, 20 children from the village of Tuba attended the nearby Tuwani Middle School. But most parents, fearing for their children's safety, switched schools, leaving only the Jundiyye children.

Mahmoud Mahamra, the school principal, flipped through a sheaf of reports he has filed to Palestinian education officials detailing the attacks:

- Sept. 17, 2001, settlers stoned the students and pointed a gun at them.

- Jan. 6, 2002, settlers set dogs on the children.

- Sept. 29, 2004, settlers beat a young girl with a stick.

The last attack, on Omar Jundiyye's 7-year-old daughter Mariam, occurred as the children were being escorted by a pair of foreign peace activists. The attackers, five masked young men, jumped out of the trees with chains and badly whipped the volunteers, according to Joe Carr, an official with the Christian Peacemaker Team, which organized the escorts.

One of the escorts was briefly hospitalized with a knee injury; the other spent weeks in the hospital recovering from broken ribs and a punctured lung, Carr said.

Less than two weeks later, eight settlers sprung from the trees again and attacked five escorts in a chaotic fracas that sent another activist, who was recording the attack on video, to the hospital, Carr said.

Soon after, the army and police began escorting the students.

Zviki Barchai, head of the local settlers' council, said anyone attacking the children should be arrested and stopped.

So far, one settler has been arrested and charged with attacking a policeman, said police spokesman Shlomi Sagi. Investigations into the other attacks - especially the beatings of the activists - are continuing, and police hope to make arrests soon, he said.

"We take this very seriously," Sagi said, "It is a big problem there."