Killing the words of Gaza: Why Israel targets Palestinian writers & teachers

Palestinians have a deep-rooted love for learning, research, and profound respect for knowledge. Long before Zionists turned their attention — and later their weapons — toward Palestine, Palestinians have had a long cultural and educational tradition dating back to antiquity, as scholar Nur Masalha demonstrates in his book Palestine Across Millennia: A History of Literary, Learning and Educational Revolutions. Masalha also challenges the Zionist narrative on Palestine being “[a] ‘black-hole’ of nothingness, devoid of literacy, literary culture and education.” Through this rich cultural history, he demonstrates that Palestine was a central international site of classical education and knowledge production, flourishing in languages such as Sumerian, Proto-Canaanite, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin.

Palestinians’ belief in the importance of knowledge was heightened following the Zionist colonisation of their land in 1948 (the Nakba) wherein more than 800,000 were expelled and many massacred. It became not just a means of survival, but a powerful act of resistance — an assertion of their historic connection to their homeland, and a safeguard for their culture.

Israel understands the value of education. Before the establishment of the state of Israel, Zionist leaders, with the support of the British colonial officers, established institutions such as the Hebrew University (1918), Technion (1925), and the Weizmann Institute (1934), recognising the crucial role that education plays in both building a settler society and colonising another. It was the Hebrew University librarians who looted Palestinian libraries from their homes in West Jerusalem after their expulsion.

Decimating education in Gaza

Even the horrors we have seen in Gaza over the past year — characterised by unprecedented violence, including the assassination of professors and students, and the bombing of universities and schools — are a continuation of Israel’s colonial policies aimed at erasing Palestinian knowledge. The occupying power seeks to severe Palestinians’ ties with their land, and dismantle their will, Sumud (steadfastness), and collective power.

Since 7 October last year, life for Palestinians in Gaza has become unrecognisable. Research from The Lancet has estimated that the number of Palestinians killed due to the US-Israel genocide will most likely surpass 180,000. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, journalists, and aid workers have all been targeted by Israel. Gaza’s infrastructure — hospitals, bakeries, mosques, churches, historical sites, archives — has been obliterated, leaving more than 1.9 million internally displaced, reflecting an intention of decimating Palestinian society in Gaza.

The Ministry of Education stated that Israel killed 11,292 students and injured 17,965 in the Gaza Strip, and killed 14 students and injured 591 in the West Bank. It also stated that 550 teachers and administrators were killed and 3,3717 were injured in Gaza and the West Bank, with more than 145 also detained in the West Bank. The Ministry concluded that 718,000 students in Gaza are still deprived of attending schools and universities. Further, more than 90% of schools have been destroyed, and all universities and libraries have been bombed — a systematic destruction that scholars have termed scholasticide.

Remembering Academics of Palestine, an initiative led by Dr. Rana Dajani aimed at tracking academics and scientists killed by Israel, includes 109 names. The Middle East Studies Association also compiled a list in September 2024 of 97 academics killed by Israel, including three university presidents, nine college deans, and eighty-five professors and other staff members.

Why are they targets?

One might ask: why does Israel target scholars, teachers, students, poets, and writers? Part of the answer can be found in the stories and reflections written by students mourning their slain teachers and poets. Yousef M. Aljamal, a former student and later a close friend of the late Dr. Refaat Al-Areer  — who was killed with his family by an Israeli bomb — wrote a powerful piece about his impact on his students and young writers in Gaza. For Aljamal, Al-Areer’s classroom was more than an academic space; it was a sanctuary where dreams of liberation were nurtured and imagined, where the soul was fed, and which engendered hope, strength, and a commitment to resistance.

Al-Areer imparted on his students the love, courage, and Sumud necessary for confronting Israel's erasure through literature and poetry. He insisted that his students' stories mattered and that it was their national duty to write and share them with others. It is this intangible power, manifested in Gaza’s classrooms, that Israel attempts to destroy with every scholar it assassinates and with every school it bombs. For Aljamal, Refaat “was and will continue to be our big brother and mentor from whom we draw inspiration to tell yet another story that will bring us closer to home.”

In 2018, Muhammad Moussa founded the Gaza Poets Society, the first spoken word community in Gaza. For many poets there, writing serves as a vital outlet — a means to heal, document, and communicate. In interviews conducted in 2021, many poets in the collective expressed the importance of writing poetry.  For poet Maha Jabrah, from the al-Nusairat refugee camp in Deir al-Balah, “there is no outlet in Gaza but poetry, it is the only medium that takes our souls wherever we want to go…Writing is the life we miss, and Gaza is what made us poets, it is what made us pen tearful poems, writing is the only free medicine in this city."

Heba Abu Nadaa, a writer and a poet who many referred to as "Gaza's daughter," "warrior of hope" and "a special writer," was killed by Israel in October. In her last work she wrote: “We find ourselves in an indescribable state of bliss amidst the chaos. Amidst the ruins, a new city emerges—a testament to our resilience. Cries of pain echo through the air, mingling with the blood-stained garments of doctors. Teachers, despite their grievances, embrace their little pupils, while families display unwavering strength in the face of adversity.”

In Gaza, it was the writers, teachers, and poets who broke Israel’s military siege: not physically, but through the power of their stories, words, and narrative. They asserted that Gaza and its people exist, with dreams, aspirations, and a love for life just like the rest of us. That they will resist their colonisers until they can live freely.

By killing and silencing these voices, Israel seeks to eliminate their influence, the sense of purpose, hope, and strength they imbue within their communities. However, as Aljamal asserts, “Refaat is an idea, and his legacy will continue. There are thousands of Refaats, telling stories beyond Gaza.” Indeed, despite all the poets, educators, and intellectuals that Israel has assassinated since 1948, thousands remain — committed to Palestine risking everything to ensure that her voice is heard.

Samar Saeed is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at Georgetown University.

Follow her on Twitter (X): @Samarsaeed

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.