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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, challenge this unified assertion to the worldwide tutorial neighborhood at a time of unprecedented devastation of upper schooling in Gaza.
Israel’s ongoing genocidal conflict has led to scholasticide—a scientific and deliberate try to get rid of our universities, their infrastructure, college, and college students. This destruction is just not collateral; it’s a part of a focused effort to eradicate the foundations of upper schooling in Gaza—foundations which have lengthy stood as pillars of resilience, hope, and mental freedom below circumstances 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 whole annihilation.
But, we stay resolute. For greater than a 12 months, now we have mobilised and brought steps to withstand this assault and be sure that our universities endure.
Regardless of the bodily obliteration of campuses, laboratories, libraries, and different amenities, 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 workers, nonetheless alive and decided to hold ahead our mission.
As articulated within the Unified Emergency Statement from Palestinian Teachers and Directors issued on Could 29, 2024, “Israeli occupation forces have demolished our buildings, however our universities reside on.”
For over a 12 months, our college, workers and college students have persevered in our core mission — educating — below unimaginably harsh circumstances. Fixed bombardment, hunger, restrictions on web entry, unstable electrical energy, and the continued horrors of genocide haven’t damaged our will. We’re nonetheless right here, nonetheless educating, and nonetheless dedicated to the way forward for schooling in Gaza.
We urgently name on our colleagues around the globe to work for:
- A sustainable and lasting ceasefire, with out which no schooling system can thrive, and an finish to all complicity with this genocide.
- Rapid worldwide mobilisation to assist and shield Gaza’s greater schooling establishments as important to the survival and long-term way forward for the Palestinian folks.
- Recognition of scholasticide as a scientific conflict on schooling, and the need of coordinated and strategic worldwide assist in partnership with our universities for the resilience and rebuilding of our tutorial infrastructure and communities.
We attraction to the worldwide tutorial neighborhood — our colleagues, establishments, and associates — to:
- Help our efforts to proceed educating and conducting analysis, below 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 instantly with and assist 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 faculties — collectively enrolling between 80 and 85 % of Gaza universities’ college students. The committee exists to withstand the erasure of our universities and supply a unified voice for Gaza’s tutorial neighborhood. It has since established subject-focused subcommittees to function trusted and coordinated channels for assist.
We name upon tutorial communities around the globe 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 reside 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 replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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