How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation

Special How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation
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Academics warn the destruction of Gaza’s schools and other educational institutions by the Israeli military could end up creating a lost generation. (AFP photos)
Special How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation
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Tarek al-Anabi, a 25-year-old Palestinian man, gathers displaced children at the Taha Hussein school eles between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants. (AFP)
Special How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation
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Academics warn the destruction of Gaza’s schools and other educational institutions by the Israeli military could end up creating a lost generation. (AFP photo)
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Updated 08 February 2024
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How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation

How the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities is creating a lost generation
  • Academics say “wholesale destruction” of Gaza’s education system renders the Palestinian territory uninhabitable
  • Israel insists its forces only bombed schools and universities because Hamas was using them as training camps

LONDON: Children and young people who survive Israel’s military campaign in Gaza stand little chance of receiving a proper education as the destruction wrought on the Palestinian enclave reduces its schools, colleges and universities to rubble.

Al-Israa was the last of Gaza’s four universities that was still standing after more than three months of bombardment. However, in mid-January, the Israeli army, which had been encamped in its grounds, blew it up.

Footage shared on social media by Nicola Perugini, an associate professor at the University of Edinburgh, showed the moment the building collapsed, having reportedly been rigged with explosives. In response, Perugini called for “a full academic boycott” of Israel.

 

 

He is not alone. The British Middle East Center for Studies and Research has also decried the “wholesale destruction” of Gaza’s education system and has urged UK universities to offer more support to educators and institutions in the Palestinian territory.

A BRISMES email sent to UK vice-chancellors said: “Israel has systematically destroyed all Gaza’s universities. Footage shared by the BBC shows Al-Israa being completely destroyed. This act of wanton destruction follows repeated targeting since the start of the war.”

 

 

The email went on to ask UK institutions to “commit to set up placements, fellowships, and scholarships” for Palestinian students, enhance placements for Palestinian academics, and offer inter-institutional cooperation.

Noting with “regret” such offerings were not currently in place, BRISMES lambasted what it claimed was a “clear double standard when set against responses to Russia’s attack on Ukraine,” calling for the same level of support for Gazans.

“Within four months of Russia’s invasion, 71 partnerships were in place with Ukrainian universities and UK universities had come forward in their droves to support their Ukrainian counterparts, backed by UK government initiatives and funding,” the email added.

Certainly, the loss of Al-Israa highlights the multi-generational repercussions this war will have for those who survive it. Many now share BRISMES’ view that such losses are in fact a key objective of the Israeli government.




Palestinians walks past the damaged building of one of the faculties of the Azhar University in Gaza City on November 26, 2023, on the third day of a truce between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Birzeit University, a West Bank-based Palestinian institute, condemned the destruction of Al-Israa as yet another “part of the Israeli occupation’s onslaught against the Palestinians … (the goal of which is) to make Gaza uninhabitable; a continuation of the genocide.”

Samia Al-Botmeh, assistant professor of economics at Birzeit, told Times Higher Education magazine that the deliberate destruction of large public buildings, including universities, required significant planning, stressing it could only have been done as part of an intentional plan to make Gaza “uninhabitable.”

She said: “The destruction of the education sector is part of this overarching strategy of the destruction of every aspect of service in Gaza that makes life there possible.”

Neve Gordon, a professor of human rights law at Queen Mary University, even described it as “educide.”

 

Israel has sought to defend its bombing of education institutes, claiming these buildings were being used by Hamas as training camps. Gordon told Times Higher Education the damage wrought would take “10-20 years to recover from.”

Nor is it just the infrastructure that has come under assault. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has recorded the killing of 94 university academics by the Israeli army in the course of the war, 17 of whom held professorships and 58 doctoral degrees.

Geneva-based Euro-Med said: “The Israeli army has targeted academic, scientific, and intellectual figures in the Strip in deliberate and specific air raids on their homes without prior notice.

“Those targeted have been crushed to death beneath the rubble, along with members of their families and other displaced families. Initial data indicates there is no justification or clear reason behind the targeting of these people.”

 

 

Others have been less certain of claims about the deliberate targeting of education, among them Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, and a strident critic of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Mekelberg said that while the destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities was “of course” part of the overall strategy in Gaza, he was less convinced that preventing education in the Strip was a priority for the Israeli military at this moment.

Stressing that it was by no means intended to justify the behavior, he told Arab News the Israeli war plan was to treat “the entire Strip as collateral damage, and sadly education suffers too.”




Displaced Palestinian children attend a Qur'an class at Bear al-Saba school in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on January 24, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)

Similarly, Julia Roknifard, an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham’s School of Politics, History and International Relations, said she had yet to see any “explicit or implicit” testimonies that this was in fact the plan.

“At the very least, it falls within the general approach of the right,” she told Arab News. “As in, not specifically weaponizing education but destroying all the infrastructure. It’s hard to single out education in these circumstances when all the rest is subject to destruction too.”

As Gaza’s university system lies in ruins, its schools are faring little better. Figures from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report that as of Feb. 4, some 78 percent of schools — representing 386 institutions — had sustained damage, with 138 having sustained major damage.

 

Phillippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the embattled UN Relief and Works Agency, said that widespread damage would result in a “lost generation” of Gazan youth.

Speaking to the BBC after footage emerged of Israeli army troops celebrating the destruction of a UN-run school in northern Gaza, Lazzarini said: “There are today more than half a million children in the primary and secondary school system.“How will they go back if you cannot bring people back to their homes, which have been completely destroyed? And I’m afraid that we’re running the risk here of losing a generation of children.”

 

A senior Israeli official told the BBC it was necessary to destroy the school because Hamas militants “cynically invade and use schools to launch attacks against Israeli troops.”

Critics have accused the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately reducing Gazan schools to debris as part of a process of “collective punishment” for the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks.

In a statement, UNESCO sought to remind “all actors” of their obligations to comply with Resolution 2601 of 2021, which “strongly condemned” attacks and threats against schools, students and teachers.

 

 

Noting the UN Security Council’s adoption of the resolution, it added that “UNESCO urges all parties to armed conflict to immediately cease such attacks and threats of attacks and to refrain from actions that impede access to education.

“This resolution also ‘condemns the military use of schools in contravention of international law and recognizes that use by armed forces and armed groups may render schools legitimate targets of attack, thus endangering children’s and teachers’ safety as well as their education.’”




Israeli troops hold a position in front of a school during a military operation in the northern Gaza Strip. (Israeli Army photo / handout via AFP)

Al-Botmeh of Birzeit University told Times Higher Education that learning had been a “mechanism of resistance” for the Palestinian people — a fact she said Israel’s government well understood.

That is why Israel is “trying to undermine our capacity to survive, resist, our capacity to continue as a people,” she said, adding that while such efforts would undermine the process of rebuilding, “it will not stop us.

“People around the world are not broken by colonizers.”

 


Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
Updated 20 November 2024
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Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
  • “Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu says

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.


Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan

Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan
Updated 20 November 2024
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Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan

Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan
  • “In light of the situation assessment and for security reasons, the President of the State has decided to cancel his trip to the Climate Conference in Azerbaijan,” the Israeli presidency said

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkiye refused to allow Israeli President Isaac Herzog to use its airspace to attend the COP climate summit in Azerbaijan, highlighting Ankara’s stance amid tensions with Israel.
“We did not allow the Israeli president to use our airspace to attend the COP summit. We suggested alternative routes and other options,” Erdogan told reporters at the G20 Summit in Brazil.
Herzog ended up canceling the visit.
“In light of the situation assessment and for security reasons, the President of the State has decided to cancel his trip to the Climate Conference in Azerbaijan,” the Israeli presidency said. Israel launched a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza a year ago after the Palestinian Islamist group’s deadly cross-border attack.
Turkiye withdrew its ambassador in Israel for consultations after the Gaza war broke out, but has not officially severed its ties with Israel and its embassy remains open and operational.
“But whether he was able to go or not, I honestly don’t know,” Erdogan said on Herzog’s visit to Baku.
“On certain matters, as Turkiye, we are compelled to take a stand, and we will continue to do so,” he said.

 


Hospital chief decries ‘extreme catastrophe’ in north Gaza

Hospital chief decries ‘extreme catastrophe’ in north Gaza
Updated 19 November 2024
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Hospital chief decries ‘extreme catastrophe’ in north Gaza

Hospital chief decries ‘extreme catastrophe’ in north Gaza
  • Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiyeh told AFP by phone: “The situation in northern Gaza is that of an extreme catastrophe

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The World Health Organization expressed grave concern on Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in war-stricken northern Gaza, where one hospital director described the situation as an “extreme catastrophe.”
“We are very, very concerned, and it’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in. It’s getting harder and harder to get the specialist personnel in at a time when there is greater and greater need,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists in Geneva.
She said the organization was “particularly concerned about Kamal Adwan Hospital” in Beit Lahia, where Israeli forces launched an offensive against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups last month.
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiyeh told AFP by phone: “The situation in northern Gaza is that of an extreme catastrophe.
“We’re beginning to lose patients because we lack medical supplies and personnel,” he said.
Abu Safiyeh added that his hospital had been “targeted many times by the occupation forces, most recently” on Monday.
“A large number of children and elderly people continue to arrive suffering from malnutrition,” the doctor said.
He accused Israel of “blocking the entry of food, water, medical staff and materials destined for the north” of the Gaza Strip.
The WHO’s Harris estimated that between November 8 and 16, “four WHO missions we were trying to get up to go were denied.”
“There’s a lack of food and drinking water, shortage of medical supplies. There’s really only enough for two weeks at the very best,” she said.
A statement from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said Tuesday: “COGAT-led humanitarian efforts in the medical field continue.”
It said that on Monday, “1,000 blood units were transferred” to Al-Sahaba hospital in Gaza City, outside the area where Israel’s military operations are taking place.
In its latest update on the situation in northern Gaza, the UN humanitarian office OCHA said Tuesday that “access to the Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals remains severely restricted amid severe shortages of medical supplies, fuel and blood units.”
 

 


Turkiye asks export group to help snuff out Israel trade

Turkiye asks export group to help snuff out Israel trade
Updated 19 November 2024
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Turkiye asks export group to help snuff out Israel trade

Turkiye asks export group to help snuff out Israel trade
  • Ankara has faced public criticism that trade may be continuing with Israel since a ban in May

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s government has asked one of the country’s top export associations to help enforce a ban on trade with Israel, slowing the flow of goods in recent weeks, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Ankara has faced public criticism that trade may be continuing with Israel given a spike in exports to the Palestinian territories since the ban in May. So it turned to the Central Anatolian Exporters’ Association, the sources said.

The Trade Ministry has asked the association to require more checks and approvals of proposed shipments, including vetting with Palestinian authorities, they said.

One of the sources, from an export association, said the new system began in mid-October, causing an initial backlog. The “main concern was goods still going to Israel, so there is a procedural change in exports to Palestine,” he said.

In response to a query, the Trade Ministry said goods were only shipped if approved by Palestinian authorities under a bilateral trade mechanism. “The destination is Palestine and the importer is a Palestinian,” it said.

According to official Turkish Statistical Institute data, Turkiye, among the fiercest critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, has cut exports there to zero since May, from a monthly average of $380 million in the first four months of the year.

But at the same time exports to Palestinian territories — which must flow through Israel — jumped around 10-fold to a monthly average of $127 million in June-September, from only $12 million in the first four months of the year, the data show.

The top goods leaving Turkish ports and earmarked for Palestinian territories in recent months are steel, cement, machinery, and chemicals, according to the Turkish Exporters Assembly, also known as TIM.

The jump in such exports raised suspicions the trade ban was being circumvented, sparking street protests that questioned one of the main policies President Tayyip Erdogan’s government imposed to oppose Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Opposition lawmakers have also sought answers in parliament.

Trade Minister Omer Bolat said this month that, before the ban, some $2 billion of Turkiye’s $6.5 billion annual trade with Israel was goods ultimately purchased by Palestinian buyers.

Last week, Bolat told parliament that the Palestinian Economy Ministry vetted all shipments. Turkiye’s Trade Ministry said that Palestinian confirmations then run through an electronic system, after which customs declarations require a separate approval.

The Central Anatolian Exporters’ Association is an umbrella body for sector-specific export groups. In the past, they all usually quickly approved shipments with little question, the sources said.

Under the new instructions from the government, the association is the main approval body, two sources said. It must first confirm receipt of information about the proposed export including the Palestinian authorities’ approval, and then approve a separate application for export, they said.

The first source said the system was working now, but slower than in the past due to relevant checks.

In the first 10 months of the year, exports to Palestinian territories were up 543 percent from a year earlier, TIM data show. In the first four months, before the Israel ban was imposed, they were up only 35 percent.


Lebanon’s first responders caught in the line of Israel-Hezbollah fire

Lebanon’s first responders caught in the line of Israel-Hezbollah fire
Updated 19 November 2024
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Lebanon’s first responders caught in the line of Israel-Hezbollah fire

Lebanon’s first responders caught in the line of Israel-Hezbollah fire
  • Israeli military claims Iran-backed Lebanese militia is using ambulances to transport arms and fighters
  • Rights group says civil defense workers, even if affiliated with Hezbollah, are protected under laws of war

LONDON: Since tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah flared up on Oct. 8 last year, paramedics and rescue workers in south Lebanon have found themselves in the line of fire, despite their protected status under international humanitarian law.

In the latest deadly incident, at least 13 people were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike that hit the main civil defense center in the eastern Baalbek area, according to Lebanon’s General Directorate of Civil Defense.

Bachir Khodr, the regional governor, was quoted by BBC News as saying that the facility belonged to the Lebanese government and that among the victims was the city’s civil defense chief

In a post on X, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said the “EU strongly condemns” the loss of life and that the pattern of attack “mirrors appalling trends in other conflicts, from Syria to Ukraine or Sudan.”

As of Oct. 31, 2024, Israeli military strikes had killed at least 173 emergency workers, injured 277 others, and damaged 243 medical vehicles and 55 hospitals, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally. (AFP)



Humanitarian organizations and rights groups have joined the ministry in condemning attacks on first responders, their facilities, and ambulances.

“The killing of first responders in south Lebanon is a heartbreaking violation, not just of international law, but of basic humanity,” Tania Baban, the Lebanon country director of the US-based charity MedGlobal, told Arab News.

The media office of the Lebanese Civil Defense earlier shared with Arab News a list documenting 13 personnel and volunteers killed in Israeli strikes while performing their duties. The document, received on Nov. 13, detailed the victims’ names, positions and place of death.

Six of the deaths occurred in the southern governorate of Nabatieh, which has come under regular bombardment since mid-September, while six others occurred in the town of Dardaghia, east of Tyre, and one in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

An Israeli strike directly hit the civil defense center in Dardaghia on Oct. 9, leaving it “completely destroyed” and killing five of its staff, according to the organization’s media office.

Since the conflict began, at least 3,189 people — more than 770 of them women and children — have been killed. (AFP)



The document provided by the Lebanese Civil Defense also listed 70 personnel and volunteers injured in Israeli attacks while carrying out their duties. Injuries ranged in severity and included burns, head trauma, and inhalation of toxic fumes.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry condemned “the continued targeting of emergency medical teams by occupation forces,” calling on the international community “to put an end to this series of ongoing war crimes.”

The statement came after an airstrike on an ambulance in Zefta, a town in Nabatieh, reportedly killed a paramedic and injured two others on the morning of Oct. 31. According to the ministry, the vehicle belonged to the Al-Risala Emergency Medical Association.

“These are people who willingly risk their lives to help others, driven by a duty to save lives, often under extreme conditions. To see them become targets is devastating,” MedGlobal’s Baban said, referring to the first responders.

She said such attacks “undermine the very core of humanitarian work,” stressing that “medics are meant to be neutral, protected under international law.”

INNUMBERS

• 173+ First responders killed in Lebanon since October 2023.

• 243+ Emergency vehicles damaged across Lebanon.

• 55+ Healthcare facilities damaged.

(Source: Lebanese MOPH)


Indeed, Article 18 of the First Geneva Convention, Articles 16(1) and 17(1) of Protocol I, and Article 10(1) of Protocol II prohibit harming or punishing anyone performing medical activities, regardless of the person benefiting from them.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Oct. 30 that it had documented three direct Israeli attacks on “medical personnel, transports, and facilities” in Lebanon, which it said constituted “apparent war crimes.”

The three reported attacks involved a civil defense center in central Beirut on Oct. 3, as well as an ambulance and a hospital in southern Lebanon on Oct. 4, which killed 14 paramedics.

As of Oct. 31, 2024, Israeli military strikes had killed at least 173 emergency workers. (AFP)



In a statement on Oct. 11, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said the conflict had killed more than 100 medics and emergency workers across Lebanon within the past year.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said at least “27 attacks targeted ambulances used by first responders” since early October last year.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally. Israel retaliated, sparking a year-long exchange of fire along the shared Israel-Lebanon border.

However, this tit-for-tat suddenly escalated in September, with Israel mounting a wave of air and ground attacks against Hezbollah’s communications network, weapons caches, and leadership, eliminating the group’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27.

Residential buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs have not been spared, nor have villages in south Lebanon, including Ayta Al-Shab, Ramyeh, Kfar Kila, and Mhaybib, according to an analysis of satellite data by The Washington Post.

Some 1.2 million people have been displaced from southern and eastern Lebanon, according to UN figures. As of Oct. 12, more than 283,000 of them — most of them Syrian nationals — had crossed the border into war-torn Syria.

Since the conflict began, at least 3,189 people — more than 770 of them women and children — have been killed, while some 14,078 others have been wounded, according to the Ministry of Public Health.

A document provided by the Lebanese Civil Defense also listed 70 personnel and volunteers injured in Israeli attacks while carrying out their duties. (AFP)



In Israel, 72 people have been killed by Hezbollah attacks, including 30 soldiers, according to the prime minister’s office. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes.

The Israeli military has not denied targeting ambulances in south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold that has become a battleground between Israeli forces and Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups. On Oct. 12, it even threatened to target medical vehicles.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, said: “Hezbollah operatives are using ambulances to transport fighters and arms.”

In a post on the social media platform X on Oct. 12, he warned that “action will be taken (by the Israeli military) against any vehicle carrying armed men, regardless of its type.”

Israel mounting a wave of air and ground attacks against Hezbollah’s communications network, weapons caches, and leadership. (AP)



Prior to Adraee’s statement, on Oct. 3, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Israel had struck a civil defense center in central Beirut belonging to the Islamic Health Committee, which is affiliated with Hezbollah.

The following day, the BBC reported that an Islamic Health Committee ambulance was struck near the entrance of Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon, killing seven paramedics and forcing the facility to close.

Human Rights Watch said in its Oct. 30 statement that “membership or affiliation with Hezbollah, or other political movements with armed wings, is not a sufficient basis for determining an individual to be a lawful military target.”

“Medical personnel affiliated with Hezbollah, including those assigned to civil defense organizations, are protected under the laws of war,” the rights monitor added.

Article 18 of the First Geneva Convention, Articles 16(1) and 17(1) of Protocol I, and Article 10(1) of Protocol II prohibit harming or punishing anyone performing medical activities. (AFP)



It called on the Israeli military to “immediately halt unlawful attacks on medical workers and health care facilities,” urging Israel’s allies to “suspend the transfer of arms to Israel given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses.”

MedGlobal’s Baban said the targeting of first responders in Lebanon “leaves communities even more vulnerable, depriving families and neighborhoods of essential care and support at a time when they need it most.”

“Every attack on medical staff not only steals lives but shakes the hope and resilience of those they serve,” she said. “We must continue to demand respect and safety for all who work to heal and protect in these conflict zones.”