By Jalal Abu Saleh
About a year ago, when the war on Gaza began, a new term derived from “genocide”, Educide or Scholasticide both indicating the “deliberate extermination of the educational sector”, entered the dictionary of terms and wars. This term is embodied in the most heinous way in the Gaza Strip today and has led to the entire educational process, both school and university, to be disarmed of the most important weapons of the Palestinians, which are knowledge and the fight against ignorance.
Before October 7, there were 796 schools accommodating about 800,000 students, in addition to 17 universities and community colleges. Of those schools and universities, the Israeli occupation completely destroyed 123, and partially destroyed 335, as six universities in the Gaza Strip were completely or partially destroyed by Israeli attacks.
According to data published by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the war of extermination on Gaza caused the death and injury of more than 25,000 children, including more than 10,000 school students, amid the destruction of 90% of the 307 public school buildings. The ministry pointed out that more than 800,000 students have been deprived of their right to education since the beginning of the war, in addition to more than 58,000 who are supposed to enrol in the first grade in the new academic year, as well as 39,000 who did not take the high school exam.
According to UNRWA data, 200 schools, representing 70% of their educational sites, were completely and partially destroyed by the continuous Israeli bombardment, stressing that more than 600,000 children suffer from deep trauma, live under the rubble, and are still deprived of education and learning, as half of them were in UNRWA schools.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimates that the damage to universities cost more than 200 million euros, and that at least three university presidents and more than 95 university deans and professors have been killed since the 7th of last October, while about 88,000 students were forced to suspend their studies, and 555 other students with international scholarships were unable to travel abroad due to violations.
An unknown fate
Educational experts and institutions specialized in educational affairs have sounded the alarm about the continued Israeli occupation attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, stressing “their destructive and long-term impact on the basic rights of the population to learn and express themselves freely, depriving another generation of Palestinians of their future.”
On the 9th of last September, the new school year began in schools in the occupied West Bank, while the Gaza Strip remained deprived of the start of the school year. Before the start of the Israeli war, schools, whether government or UNRWA schools, were equipped and accommodated students adequately, and had an organized and prepared educational environment. However, as the Israeli attacks started and with the lack of safe places and the destruction of educational facilities, the future of education in Gaza became uncertain and the teaching process was left to face an unknown fate.
The resilience of Gaza teachers: virtual education, and in tents!
Teachers and activists from Gaza have opened intensive classes for Gazan students in refugee camps as much as possible, as a kind of voluntary work and in response to the Israeli war of ignorance targeting the new Palestinian youth. But all these initiatives do not even cover a small part of the academic needs of Gazan children and students, much less compensate them for the destruction of schools and universities and the targeting of teachers and scholars.
Here, it is necessary to commend the role of teachers and their keenness on the continuity of education and ensuring that it is not interrupted despite the difficult circumstances. Inside tents and classrooms in partially destroyed schools, volunteer teachers offer lessons to children from the Palestinian curriculum, lacking the most basic educational tools such as books, stationery, and benches. Yet, Palestinians insist on receiving education using the few available means they have.
The Palestinian Ministry of Education, which is responsible for education in the West Bank and Gaza, has sought to preserve children’s education in the Gaza Strip by launching “virtual education” and opening virtual classes for teaching via the Internet, through which teachers from the West Bank provide intensive lessons to Gaza students.
However, many problems stand in the way of this initiative, the first of which is the difficulty of providing internet for most Gazans, the preoccupation with searching for the basic necessities of life, which have become so scarce, the state of continuous movement and displacement to escape death and bombardment, not to mention the inability of most students to have access to tablets or the Internet to benefit from these lessons, in addition to the deteriorating conditions in the West Bank, which also suffer from major imbalances in the educational structure due to the aggression against it.
Gaza students.. a future built by determination amidst the rubble!
Despite the suffering brought on by the war and its implications, and amid missiles and bombs, a number of Master’s students insisted on discussing their theses, to turn the tents to which they were displaced because of the war into halls in which they announced the completion of their dreams, and showed their resolve and determination that conquered the impossible, amid the deprivation of university students in Gaza of their right to education over the past year, which has greatly affected their academic and professional future.
The devastating war has put university students in the face of the unknown, with tens of thousands of them losing the opportunity to graduate due to the disruption of the educational process. Universities in Gaza have been a legitimate target for Israeli rockets and missiles, which have targeted most of them in the Strip, most notably The Islamic University, al-Azhar University, al-Quds Open University, Al-Isra’a University, Gaza University, Palestine University, and al-Ummah University.
We need solutions… but we demand accountability!
In light of these facts, it is necessary to start using the term educational genocide broadly, and to ensure accountability for these crimes against generations who have not only lost their right to education, but also lost hope of returning to their classrooms at the present time, especially since the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will take years.
It is also important to address the serious consequences resulting from genocide, whether in education, health, the environment, and others, with the need for all parties to intervene to provide educational centres and institutions in the Gaza Strip, to compensate for the educational losses of students in schools and universities.
Therefore, the recurring aggression against schools and universities in Gaza and the West Bank constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian laws, given the occupying power’s disregard for the Fourth Geneva Convention, which classifies schools and universities as civilian facilities that must be protected.
Hence, the international community is required to take decisive action, to emphasize the need to hold the Israeli occupation responsible for these flagrant violations of international law and human rights, stop the genocide, and establish a lasting political framework to guarantee the safety and dignity of the Palestinian people and their right to education.
