The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said that it documented the Israeli army’s killing of 94 Palestinian university professors, hundreds of teachers, and thousands of students during the war on Gaza, noting raids targeting specific scholars.
The Observatory explained in a statement published today, Saturday, that the Israeli army “carried out deliberate and specific attacks against academic, scientific and intellectual figures in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of them were killed in direct raids that targeted their homes without warning, and they were crushed to death under the rubble along with members of their families or other families who had fled to them or were displaced.” to her”.
The Observatory stated that the list it documented included 17 individuals holding professor’s degrees, 59 holding doctoral degrees, and 18 holding master’s degrees, indicating that the tally is not final; There are estimates that there are other numbers of targeted academics.
He pointed out that the targeted academics are distributed across various scientific fields, and the majority of them represent “the pillars of academic work in Gaza’s universities.”
The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory confirmed that what enhances the possibility of Israel deliberately targeting all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip is the systematic and widespread destruction of cultural objects, including historical ones.
Over the course of more than 100 days of war, Israel directly destroyed all universities in the Gaza Strip in stages, according to the Observatory’s statement.
Destruction of universities
The first stage was bombing operations that targeted buildings at the “Islamic” and “Al-Azhar” universities, then the matter extended to the rest of the universities, leading to some of them being blown up and completely blown up after they were converted into military barracks, as happened at Al-Isra University in southern Gaza, which the Israeli media reported last Wednesday. Scenes documenting its bombing, 70 days after it was converted into a barracks and a temporary detention center.
According to the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory, preliminary estimates also indicate that hundreds of university students were martyred as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks.
The Observatory indicated that the destruction of universities and the killing of academics and students will make it more difficult to resume university and academic life after the war stops, as it may take years for universities to be able to resume studies in a completely destroyed environment.
According to what the Observatory reported from the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 4,327 students were martyred and 7,819 others were injured, while 231 teachers and administrators were killed, and 756 were injured with various injuries.
The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory stressed that Israel’s widespread destruction of cultural and historical properties, such as universities, schools, libraries, and archives, comes within the framework of public policies to make the Gaza Strip “a place unlivable and uninhabitable, and thus creating an environment that lacks the minimum necessities of life and services, which may push its residents into exile.” “Ultimately immigration.”
The statement stated that these attacks come within the framework of “the crime of genocide committed by Israel against the residents of the Gaza Strip, through which it aims to destroy the Palestinians physically and spiritually.”