We, the presidents of Gaza’s three non-profit universities— Al-Aqsa College, Al-Azhar College-Gaza, and the Islamic College of Gaza — collectively accounting for the overwhelming majority of Gaza’s college students and college members, concern this unified assertion to the worldwide tutorial neighborhood at a time of unprecedented devastation of upper training in Gaza.
Israel’s ongoing genocidal warfare has led to scholasticide—a scientific and deliberate try and get rid of our universities, their infrastructure, college, and college students. This destruction shouldn’t be collateral; it’s a part of a focused effort to eradicate the foundations of upper training in Gaza—foundations which have lengthy stood as pillars of resilience, hope, and mental freedom underneath situations of occupation and siege. Whereas tutorial establishments throughout Palestine have confronted assaults for many years, what we’re witnessing immediately is an escalation: a shift from repeated acts of destruction to an try at complete annihilation.
But, we stay resolute. For greater than a 12 months, now we have mobilised and brought steps to withstand this assault and be certain that our universities endure.
Regardless of the bodily obliteration of campuses, laboratories, libraries, and different services, and the assassination of our college students and colleagues, our universities live on. We’re greater than buildings — we’re tutorial communities, comprised of scholars, college, and employees, nonetheless alive and decided to hold ahead our mission.
As articulated within the Unified Emergency Statement from Palestinian Lecturers and Directors issued on Might 29, 2024, “Israeli occupation forces have demolished our buildings, however our universities dwell on.”
For over a 12 months, our college, employees and college students have continued in our core mission — educating — underneath unimaginably harsh situations. Fixed bombardment, hunger, restrictions on web entry, unstable electrical energy, and the continuing horrors of genocide haven’t damaged our will. We’re nonetheless right here, nonetheless educating, and nonetheless dedicated to the way forward for training in Gaza.
We urgently name on our colleagues world wide to work for:
- A sustainable and lasting ceasefire, with out which no training system can thrive, and an finish to all complicity with this genocide.
- Quick worldwide mobilisation to help and defend Gaza’s greater training establishments as important to the survival and long-term way forward for the Palestinian individuals.
- Recognition of scholasticide as a scientific warfare on training, and the need of coordinated and strategic worldwide help in partnership with our universities for the resilience and rebuilding of our tutorial infrastructure and communities.
We enchantment to the worldwide tutorial neighborhood — our colleagues, establishments, and buddies — to:
- Assist our efforts to proceed educating and conducting analysis, underneath siege and amidst loss.
- Decide to the long-term rebuilding of Gaza’s universities in partnership with us, respecting our institutional autonomy and tutorial company.
- Work in partnership with us. Interact straight with and help the very establishments that proceed to embody tutorial life and collective mental resistance in Gaza.
Final 12 months, we formally established the Emergency Committee of the Universities in Gaza, representing our three establishments and affiliated schools — collectively enrolling between 80 and 85 % of Gaza universities’ college students. The committee exists to withstand the erasure of our universities and provide a unified voice for Gaza’s tutorial neighborhood. It has since established subject-focused subcommittees to function trusted and coordinated channels for help.
We name upon tutorial communities world wide to coordinate themselves in response to this name. The time for symbolic solidarity has handed. We now ask for sensible, structured, and enduring partnership.
Work alongside us to make sure that Gaza’s universities dwell on and stay an important a part of our collective future.
The views expressed on this article are the authors’ personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
