As the brutal war in the Gaza Strip rages on, the Israeli army has systematically attacked most of the education facilities, killing thousands of students, teachers and lecturers in cold blood.
By targeting these facilities, it is clear that the Israeli army aims to end the existence of any place of education and obliterate any prospects for young Palestinians, even post-war.
The Israeli army has also worked to convert many universities in the Gaza Strip into military barracks and places for investigation, later destroying them after they are done, according to Palestinian officials at the education ministry.
Before the war, the ministry said there were about 796 schools in the Gaza Strip, including 442 government schools, 284 affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and 70 private schools.
There were also around 17 higher education institutions in Gaza, including an open-education university, with nearly 87,000 male and female students in the Strip enrolled in these institutions.
We review the most important universities destroyed by the Israeli army since October 7:
The Al-Azhar University
The Al-Azhar University in Gaza is one of the most prominent Palestinian universities providing educational services to 15,000 male and female students, with 600 academic and administrative employees.
The university has 12 specialised colleges that include 120 programmes, including 80 that grant a Bachelor's degree and 36 that grant a Master's degree.
The university's board of directors confirmed that the university buildings — among the most important institutions of higher education and scientific research in the Gaza Strip and Palestine — have come under heavy damage, incurring grave losses.
However, the council is determined to rehabilitate the university buildings, halls and laboratories after the war ends.
The Islamic University
The Islamic University in Gaza, one of the most important Palestinian universities, has incurred great damage and severe material losses after being targeted by the Israeli army.
The university administration told The New Arab that the building of the Faculty of Information Technology, the building of the Deanship of Community Service and Continuing Education, and the building of the Faculty of Science at the university were severely damaged, including all their equipment, laboratories, and furniture. In addition to this, most of the glass and facades of the university buildings are broken.
Israel has targeted this particular university since its founding in the late seventies, and it later became a target for the Israeli army due to Hamas leaders, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Ismail Abu Shanab, being on its board of directors.
Hamas leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Deif have also graduated from here, which explains the repeated Israeli accusations against the university and its targeting at every opportunity.
University of Palestine
The Israeli army destroyed all the buildings of the University of Palestine in the city of Al-Zahraa, south of Gaza, during its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
The university administration considered the destruction of its headquarters in the city of Al-Zahraa, and before that, the complete destruction of the Khan Yunis branch, a crime, violation, and a clear breach of international laws, charters, and norms that protect educational and academic institutions.
They have also stressed that the campus and headquarters are civilian educational facilities.
Al-Isra University
The Israeli army attacked the Al-Isra University in Al-Zahraa city, south of Gaza, and bombed the main building of the graduate colleges.
It also blew up the National Museum inside the university, which is licensed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and is the first in the country.
The museum included more than 3,000 rare artefacts dating back to the Islamic, Roman, Islamic and Palestinian historical eras.
The army also blew up the buildings of the first and only university hospital in the Gaza Strip and the second in Palestine, the buildings of medical and engineering laboratories, nursing laboratories, the media training studio, the training courts of the Faculty of Law, and graduation halls.
The headquarters of the university's intermediate studies Diploma in the northern Gaza Strip and the Continuing Education and Vocational Training Centre located in the western part of Gaza in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood were also targeted, and it was recently transformed into a shelter for the displaced.
Al-Quds Open University — Gaza Branch
The Al-Quds Open University is one of the open education universities and has branches in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
There are five branches of the Open University in the Strip and the Gaza branch in Al-Rimal is the first branch established by the university there.
'Systematic and deliberate' targeting of educational facilities
Rami Abdo, the head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor based in Geneva, said that the targeting of educational institutions by the Israeli army is systematic and deliberate.
“The targeting included all educational institutions in the Gaza Strip, where many of them were destroyed,” Rami told The New Arab.
He added that the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip will cause a time hiatus for students to return to school, as some of them will be forced to change their university specialisations, and others will decide not to complete their studies because the time required to resume school life will be long.
He pointed out that the Israeli army has turned schools into military barracks for tanks or used them as temporary headquarters for the army and centres for investigating and abusing citizens.
He noted that the army destroyed schools, either by planting explosives or completely destroying them, as the Israeli forces published video clips of the destruction operations, as happened when a school was destroyed on December 12, near the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza.
The severe destruction that many universities and other educational institutions were exposed to raises a question about the future of students and education in Gaza when the war ends.
Wissam Amer, the head of the Faculty of Communication and Languages at Gaza University, said that the war led to the loss of an entire generation of its education, whether in primary school or higher education.
He added that rebuilding the educational system in Gaza is not impossible, but it will take a long time and may take years, noting that “education requires security and this security is missing in the Gaza Strip.”
“There is no safe place in the Strip… so the search for education at this stage is very difficult because the priority is not academia or education but rather the search for security… the housing search… the search for water,” he stressed.
“The widespread and deliberate destruction of cultural and historical properties, such as universities, schools, libraries and archives, by Israel through its military offensive is part of its overt policy of making the Gaza Strip an uninhabitable place,” he explained.
Sally Ibrahim is The New Arab's correspondent from Gaza