Scholasticide The Destruction of Education in #Gaza

“UNRWA can confirm that one of our schools in the Nuseirat area [in central Gaza] was hit overnight/early morning [Thursday] by Israeli Forces. ⁠The school was possibly hit several times…The number of those reported killed is between 35 and 45. Scores others are injured. We are not able to confirm the above figure at this stage.”

Sheltering in the school were mostly women and children. Schools are no longer places of learning in Gaza – not since Israel started its bombardment and devastation on the region in response to the Hamas attack on 7th October 2023.

Education has stopped. Not only has it stopped but Israel is targeting the academic and cultural institutions of Gaza. This time last year there were 12 Universities in Gaza – today there are none – obliterated by the bombing and with thousands of academics, teachers and students killed.

In this most recent attack on the school where civilians had taken shelter, at least 14 of those killed were children. The school had once been run by the United Nations relief agency UNRWA, a place of learning and play, but was now being used by 6,000 displaced people.

Professor Sufyan Tayeh

Professor Sufyan Tayeh, was President of the Islamic University of Gaza. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike on 2nd December 2023.

By https://bianet.org/haber/prof-dr-sufyan-tayeh-israil-saldirisinda-hayatini-kaybetti-288776, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75498990

As a child in the Jabalia Camp in Northern Gaza, Professor Tayeh, was educated at the UNRWA school there. He was a leading researcher in physics and applied mathematics. Professor Tayeh was winner of the Palestine Islamic Bank Award for Scientific Research for the years 2019 and 2020, recipient of the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Young Arab Scientists and the Islamic University Award for Scientific Research for the year 2021. His field of study included optical waveguides, optical waveguide sensing, ellipsometry, dye-sensitized solar cells, and OLEDs.

Dr Wiesam Essa

Dr Wiesam Essa, of Al-Aqsa University in Palestine was also recently a Visiting Fellow of The University of Manchester. He was killed in Gaza in the first week of January 2024, when his apartment block was badly damaged by Israeli bombs.

“The University of Manchester and the Department of Geography will be an oasis for me after years of wandering in both human and academic crises within the Gaza Strip. I’m grateful to the University, IIE-SRF and CARA for helping me to make this move so that I can practice my life of learning, teaching, and research without any fear.”

The University of Manchest Memoriam to Dr Essa states:

Wiesam had been based in the Department of Geography at Al-Aqsa University in Palestine since early 2005 and also held a part-time position in the Department of Computer Science. He studied for a BSc in Environment and Earth Science at the Islamic University of Gaza graduating in 1998 followed by a year at the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University.

In 2004 he completed a master’s degree in Land Degradation and Conservation in the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at University of Twente in the Netherlands. Wiesam then spent three years (2008–2011) as a PhD researcher in the Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. The title of his PhD thesis is: Thermal Subpixel Estimation in Urban Areas with Spaceborne Sensing. Wiesam made many friends at VUB and the knowledge and skills he developed there shaped the rest of his career.

Read extended tributes to Wiesam by The University of Manchester and Cara ( Council for At-Risk Academics )

Professor Nesma Abu Shaira, Al-Aqsa University

Professor Abu Shaira was a visual artist and an educator at the Al-Aqsa University in Gaza. She obtained a degree in fine arts at Al-Aqsa and then taught there in the Department of Fine Arts and Graphic Design. As a lecturer, she was very proud of her female students, saying she saw “a bright future in them.”

As an artist, she especially enjoyed character sketches that included characters from books and mystical creatures. In 2011, Abu Shaira won third place in the first Gaza Contemporary Art Festival. Abu Shaira was in the midst of various projects such as creating illustrations for a children’s book and working on a new series of artworks “documenting Palestine” in her own way. She was killed, along with her family, in an Israeli airstrike on her home on October 28, 2023.

Israa University, the last remaining university in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli military on 17 January 2024.

‘Scholasticide’ is a term which refers to the systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure. That is what has happened in Gaza.

On the 18th of April experts appointed by the UN reported that more than 1 million Palestinian children in Gaza are now in need of mental health and psychosocial support and will suffer the trauma of this war throughout their lives.

“The foundations of Palestinian society are being reduced to rubble, and their history is being erased.

“Attacks on education cannot be tolerated. The international community must send a clear message that those who target schools and universities will be held responsible,” the experts said, adding that accountability for these violations includes an obligation to finance and rebuild the education system.

“We owe it to the children of Gaza to uphold their right to education and pave the way for a more peaceful and just future.”

Islanders in Orkney will again gather in vigil for Gaza on Saturday 8th June at the Kirk Green, St Magnus Cathedral, Broad Street, Kirkwall, between 1 and 2pm and extend an invitation to anyone who wishes to join them.