On Monday morning, in the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, a few miles outside Jerusalem, the latest deadline for the community’s survival will expire.

The most recent ultimatum was delivered to residents last Sunday by an Israeli government that has long pursued them through the courts. The villagers were told that they have until 1 October to demolish their homes and leave, following the rejection of a last-ditch appeal in Israel’s supreme court.

Khan al-Ahmar’s school is built from old car tyres and clay. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

First established in the early 1950s by members of a semi-nomadic tribe that the UN says was displaced from the Negev desert, Khan al-Ahmar was not recognised by Israel as a residential area following its occupation of the West Bank during the 1967 war. Since 2009, residents have been fighting demolition orders.

Home to almost 180 people, Khan al-Ahmar – located in the occupied Palestinian territories – has long been a symbol of the plight of the Bedouin community, both in the occupied territories and Israel. The village has also become an embodiment of the prospects for a two-state settlement, with EU governments including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain recently appealing to Israel once again not to demolish the village, warning of “the prospects of the two-state solution”.

As the legal process has ground to an end, one focus has been Khan al-Ahmar’s school – known as the “tyre school” – built as a temporary structure out of about 2,000 discarded car tyres and clad in clay.

But even as threats to demolish the community have escalated, learning has continued within the highly marginalised community, even on what might be the school’s last day.

‘It might happen, but it is not happening today – so we’ll keep studying’: children in Khan al-Ahmar attend a school lesson. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

Photojournalist Quique Kierszenbaum, who has been reporting on the situation in Khan al-Ahmar for a decade, has visited several times amid the latest threat to the village and its school.

“The kids are very aware of the situation. Some of them told me: ‘They’re going to destroy the school and the army is going to come’. You have a lot of activists visiting, including foreign activists, with people sitting in the playground of the school, where they used to play football.

“But soon as they got into the school it was very normal. Which was surprising. Once classes started it was almost as if nothing was happening.

“The feeling, after covering this for 10 years, is that there is always pressure and that the court could issue another pause. But it does feel like it may be near the end.

“But at the school the feeling is yes, it might happen, but it is not happening today so we’ll just keep studying. We’re not going to stop.”