Islamic University of Gaza Before Demolishment Khadeja Saeed Alamawi
While we are having fun with Homecoming Week and attending university in the United States, we should be mindful that students in Gaza do not have that same privilege. Israel is waging a scholasticide in Gaza, destroying the dreams of students and denying them the basic right of education.
Scholasticide is a term coined by Karma Nabulsi, MPhil, DPhil, at Oxford University after the 2008-2009 war on Gaza, in which the IOF targeted Gaza’s schools and universities.
In Palestine, students in the Gaza Strip have been unable to attend school and university since Oct. 7, 2023. Due to the Israeli facilitated genocide of Gaza, over 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced from their homes into local schools, hospitals, and refugee camps. Over 600,000 children have been unable to attend school and study as a result of the ongoing genocide.
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have routinely targeted schools that have been housing thousands of displaced people. According to the Government Media Office (GMO) one-hundred and twenty-three schools and universities in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed.
The GMO also states that since Oct. 7, 2023, over 11,000 students up to the age of 18 have been killed by the IOF, as well as 750 teachers.
In 2023, many students had just graduated from high school and were excited to begin their studies in university. Because of the genocide, they have had to put their dreams on an indefinite pause.
I remember in July 2023, Palestinian high school students were excited to receive their Tawjihi scores. Tawjihi is a government mandated test that students all over Palestine are required to take in order to enter university. There is a liberal arts branch and a STEM branch, where students can pick which test to take to place into university.
One student stood out in particular to me. Her name was Shaima Saidam and she was from Gaza. She scored a 99.6 out of 100, and ranked number 1 in Palestine. She hoped to study the English Language at the Islamic University of Gaza.
As fate would have it, 18- year-old Saidam was martyred on Oct. 15, 2023 as a result of an Israeli airstrike.
I was beyond excited for her when I saw her on the news last July, and when I heard of her passing my heart broke. May God have mercy on her soul.
Just as incoming freshman students were excited to begin university, senior students were excited to graduate and begin their professional careers, now being unable to because of the genocide.
Palestinian twins in Gaza, Salem and Salma Shurrab, were in their last year of dental school when their lives were thrown off track. Instead of planning for graduation and finishing up their dental program, they have been forced to focus on survival.
I remember watching their stories on Instagram and keeping up with their coverage of the genocide for weeks. My heart broke for Salma seeing her so distressed about having to leave her home and put her life on pause. Salma and Salem would have graduated and started working with their degrees by now if it wasn’t for the Israeli facilitated genocide.
I think of Abod Battah, an 18-year-old from North Gaza who has been documenting his life for the past year and has become a self-proclaimed journalist. He would have been starting university this year had it not been for Israel.
No one realizes just how much this genocide is affecting the Palestinains in Gaza. It’s not just starvation, bombardment, and killing, it’s denying everyone to live life the way they desire by the simplest of means.
Rather than keeping up with studying, students of all ages in Gaza have to worry about surviving and trying to find some sense of safety.
Unfortunately, things are not any better in the West Bank. University students in the West Bank are constantly targeted by the IOF and either killed or arrested. Within the first couple weeks in the Fall 2023 semester, the IOF abducted eight students from the student council, including the student council president, at Birzeit University, near Ramallah.
All eight students were sentenced to administrative detention. Since then over 140 students from Birzeit have been wrongfully arrested between Oct. 2023 and May 2024.
Education should not be a luxury. Education is a basic human right, and Israel, with Western approval, is making that impossible.
Palestinians deserve to study without fear of bombardment, being arrested for an indefinite amount of time, or even killed.
Let Palestinians live and study in peace, dignity, and freedom.
Free Palestine.
About Post Author
