OPEN LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICAN ACADEMICS CONDEMNING SCHOLASTICIDE IN GAZA

OPEN LETTER TEXT:

We are academics based at North American institutions who have come together based on a shared sense of collegial obligation and respect for humanity to condemn Israel’s systematic attacks on educational life in Gaza.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza following the deplorable Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 have resulted in mass civilian death, injury and widespread devastation for 2.3 million Palestinians. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has referred to the situation as a “humanitarian nightmare.” We are witnessing an attack on a people and their culture. We have seen entire families and communities eliminated, the widespread destruction of the environment, mass displacement and forced starvation. As of this writing, over 32,500 people have been killed, including more than 75,000 wounded and over 1.7 million displaced. According to satellite imagery, more than half of all buildings have been destroyed or damaged, and the UN Food & Agriculture Organization reports damage to about 43% of all cropland in the Strip.As academics, we have watched with horror as Israel has systematically and deliberately attacked universities and schools in Gaza. Our colleagues in Gaza, along with their students and educational infrastructure, have been directly targeted and destroyed in indiscriminate attacks. 

Detailing the impacts of Israeli attacks on university education, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports that:

“[T]hree university presidents have been killed in the Israeli attacks, along with more than 95 university deans and professors […] Meanwhile, 88,000 students have been deprived of receiving their university education […] According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 4,327 students have been killed and 7,819 others have been injured during the ongoing attacks, while 231 teachers and administrators have been killed and 756 injured.”

All 12 universities in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the war on Gaza has cost the education sector $720 million. On 11 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes destroyed the Islamic University in Gaza City – one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the besieged Strip. On 17 January 2024, the Israeli military used a controlled explosion to destroy Al-Isra University. Before doing so, Israel had converted the university into military barracks and then a temporary detention center.

Israel’s attacks have also devastated children’s education. To date, nearly 6,000 school-age children have been killed, and another 10,000 have been wounded. Some 964 teachers and school administrators have been killed and 960 injured. As of January 2024, 378 schools in Gaza, accounting for 76% of the school buildings in the Strip, had been damaged; 117 of these have sustained major damage or have been completely destroyed. All schools run by UNRWA have closed, and more than 625,000 students and 23,000 teachers have been affected by school closures.

Targeting Palestinian education has long been a central tactic of the occupation. Karma Nabulsi of the University of Oxford has called the intentional and systematic destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, personnel and students scholasticide. Today, this destruction is taking place on an unprecedented scale. The former president of the University of Palestine has called the current war on Gaza “a war on education.” In its 26 January 2024 Order regarding the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) emphasized the differential impact of the destruction on children and young people, noting the statement from the head of UNRWA that “[a]n entire generation of children is traumatized and will take years to heal. […] Hundreds of thousands are deprived of education. Their future is in jeopardy, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.” Protecting and fostering Palestinian education is essential to the continuation of the Palestinian people as a distinct national and cultural group.

We, the undersigned, write to condemn Israel’s systematic targeting of academics, students, educational institutions and cultural heritage sites in Gaza, in violation of international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law. These attacks are deeply personal. Some of us have taught Palestinian students, or collaborated with faculty from academic institutions in Gaza who have been killed or injured or who have seen their institutions destroyed. We mourn what these losses mean for world knowledge and culture, and for the future of the Palestinian people, and we stand in solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues and students and all others who deplore this scholasticide.

The right to education is an internationally protected human right enshrined in multiple human rights instruments to which Israel is a party, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education, 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. As observed by the ICJ in its advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the protection afforded by international human rights conventions, as a general matter, “does not cease in case of armed conflict.” The right to education is binding in all circumstances and is to be protected in all situations, including during crises and emergencies resulting from civil strife and war.

Denying access to education through the widespread and systematic destruction of educational infrastructure, along with deliberate and indiscriminate killing of educators and students, is an essential attribute of the collective punishment Israel is inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza, in violation of international humanitarian law. As an occupying power, Israel’s targeting of Palestinian educational institutions, staff and students violates the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 relating to the protection of civilians in times of war. As a more general matter, international humanitarian law strictly prohibits attacks directed against civilian objects (including education facilities) and civilians (including teachers and students) and requires that states take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize harm to both civilians and civilian objects. Attacks intentionally directed against civilians or civilian objects, including educational infrastructure, can constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Palestinian national identity is also under sustained assault through Israel’s destruction and theft of cultural and historical property. As of 7 November 2023 – just one month into the war – Heritage for Peace reported that over 100 cultural landmarks in Gaza had been damaged by Israeli military operations. The destruction of al-Isra University encompassed the National Museum, which housed over 3,000 antiquities reportedly looted by the Israeli army. A report by Librarians and Archivists for Palestine notes that such destruction “impoverishes the collective identity of the Palestinian people, irrevocably denies them their history, and violates their sovereignty.” The Palestinian Ministry of Culture indicates that, as of February 2024, 207 archaeological sites and culturally significant buildings – including museums, libraries and archives – had been either destroyed or seriously damaged. Educational and cultural infrastructure is specially protected under international law. Intentionally targeting buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes and historic monuments, provided they are not military objectives, is a war crime under the Rome Statute.

We ask academic institutions and scholars all over the world to join us in condemning Israel’s attacks on Palestinian intellectual and educational life in Gaza. Scholasticide facilitates the physical and cultural erasure of the Palestinian people and is integral to rendering the Gaza Strip uninhabitable. As academics at North American universities, we have seen attempts by our own governments to destroy the physical and social existence of Indigenous peoples by attacking and denying access to Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing. Israel’s ongoing assaults on academia must stop. Measures must be taken to ensure that Palestinian universities and schools can carry out their educational mission and Palestinian students can continue their education undisturbed.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, call for: 

1. An immediate andpermanent ceasefire, including compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2728 of 25 March 2024; 

2. Israel’s compliance with the ICJ orders of 26 January 2024 and 28 March 2024 setting out provisional measures, including implementation of immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian aid to Gaza; 

3. An end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and its occupation, so that the educational sector can be rebuilt; 

4. Full access of United Nations agencies to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to carry out independent monitoring, documentation and investigation, and all necessary humanitarian coordination; 

5. All States that have suspended funding to UNRWA to immediately resume funding; 

6. North American universities, governments, NGOs and individual academics to support the reconstruction of schools and universities and other educational institutions in Gaza, through financial and in-kind contributions; and 

7. State and individual accountability under domestic and international law mechanisms. 

List of signatories and signature form available here