Academics and workers at universities in the Gaza Strip called for the formulation of a long-term strategy to rehabilitate the educational infrastructure and quickly move education online to mitigate the effects that befell university education as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Strip for about 8 months.
A statement signed by more than 180 academics and workers at Gaza universities called on academics around the world to resist the ongoing campaign of “epistemological genocide” in occupied Palestine in general, and in the Gaza Strip in particular, and to work side by side to rebuild the destroyed universities, and to reject all plans. Which aims to overtake, erase or weaken existing academic institutions.
The statement stressed that the future of Gaza’s youth depends on the ability of academic cadres to remain on their land in the service of future generations.
The signatories of the statement said that they were issuing it under the bombs of the occupation forces throughout Gaza, from the refugee camps in Rafah, and from their temporary exile in Egypt and other host countries, considering that “the deliberate targeting of the educational infrastructure is a blatant attempt to make Gaza uninhabitable and to fragment the intellectual fabric.” and cultural of our society.
Partners of the occupation
The statement also referred to what it described as partners in the United States and Britain joining the “Israeli cognitive annihilation” campaign, considering that they are “working to block the future path to the reconstruction of our universities as part of a broader process aimed at eliminating the opportunity for an independent Palestinian educational life in Gaza.”
While the statement stressed the rejection of these plans, it called on academics around the world to refuse to collude with such projects.
The statement also indicated that there is an urgent need to restart Gaza’s educational institutions, not only in order to support current students, but also in order to ensure the steadfastness and continuity of the higher education system as it is a vital pillar and beacon of hope for the Palestinian people.
The statement concluded by emphasizing the need for comprehensive support to cover operational expenses, including pensions, after Gaza’s universities lost their primary source of income represented by student tuition fees, as well as the need for a rapid transition to online education to mitigate the disruption resulting from the destruction of the universities’ infrastructure.
The most prominent signatories of the statement include the President of Al-Azhar University in Gaza, the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic University, and the deans of the faculties of medicine, science, agriculture, economics, law, and Sharia, as well as department heads, professors, and administrators in several universities in the Gaza Strip.
Observers say that Israel deliberately, during its ongoing war on Gaza for about 8 months, leveled all the major universities to the ground, as the educational journey of about a quarter of a million university students took its toll after the occupation turned their universities and scientific laboratories into a pile of rubble. More than 100 scientists, academics, and university presidents were also martyred. .