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GAZA ‘SCHOLASTICIDE’: WE MOURN OUR UNIVERSITIES AS ONE MOURNS AN
OLD FRIEND  
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Ghada Abu Muaileq
October 25, 2025
Middle East Eye
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_ As students like me try to rebuild our shattered lives, the ruins
of our institutions stand as monuments to Israel's assault - not only
on Palestinian bodies, but on our learning and future _

A Palestinian woman walks through the destroyed Islamic University of
Gaza, where she has taken shelter, in Gaza City, on 1 June 2025,
Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

 

Here I am, answering your call, my university of truth.Here I am,
standing tall with your flag held high.Here I am, a pioneer on the
path of our pride.Here I am, shining like the full moon in the
dark.Here I am, my university...

This is the anthem of my university, the Islamic University of Gaza
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dreamed of chanting it on graduation day, standing on the stage of the
Grand Conference Hall.

My classmates and I planned that day in detail: what we would wear,
which photographer we would book and the colour of the flower bouquets
our families would bring.

These are ordinary dreams for any student in the world, but in Gaza
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even the simplest ones become unattainable, or are suddenly ripped
away, leaving only fragments of memory.

I still don't know what compelled me to do so, but on that last day of
classes before 7 October 2023, I found myself wandering through every
corridor of the university. I stayed late that Friday, not returning
home until four in the afternoon.

I bought my favourite drink from the cafeteria and roamed the hallways
between the buildings, sitting on the back benches shaded by the
bright bougainvillaea trees. I felt an unsettling anxiety.

A week earlier, I had dreamt that I was running down the university
stairs, fleeing. I saw some of my professors, their shirts stained
with blood.

I woke up, startled, before my alarm, staring at the clothes I had
laid out for class that day, listening to the hum of cars outside. I
took a deep breath, grateful it was only a nightmare, not a real war.

I didn't know that the dream was only a prelude to what was coming,
that the unease I felt was a warning I couldn't yet understand.

On that fateful Saturday morning, I woke up startled again, before my
alarm. But this time, the nightmare had become reality.

The university issued a notice suspending classes indefinitely. Two
days later, on 9 October, several buildings were damaged by Israeli
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October, Israeli warplanes targeted eight more buildings at IUG's main
campus in Gaza City.

I watched the bombing live on television. My heart burned as I saw my
university engulfed in flames, the dreams I had built there collapsing
into ashes, the laughter and memories scattered across cafeteria
tables, benches and empty halls.

What remained was shock: the kind that hits when everything you've
struggled for is destroyed in an instant, when reality, under
unbearable weight, gives way to disbelief.

Erasing knowledge

It didn't stop there. In December 2023, Israel bombed the Faculty of
Medicine, along with other institutions such as Al-Azhar University -
Gaza and the University of Palestine, which were completely
demolished. Israeli soldiers filmed the destruction in a brazen show
of impunity.

Al-Israa University soon met the same fate.

By the end of that winter, all 19 universities in Gaza
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had been destroyed. Around 80 percent of their buildings were reduced
to rubble. Four universities were completely obliterated, and ten
others suffered severe or moderate damage.

These attacks deprived nearly 88,000 university students of their
education.

Last month, UN agencies reported that Israel had destroyed or damaged
95 percent of Gaza's educational facilities, depriving more than
650,000 children of learning for over two years. UN agencies and
rights groups have condemned this systematic destruction as
"scholasticide
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- a deliberate annihilation of education.

In January 2024, Israeli strikes hit the university's branch in Khan
Younis in southern Gaza, crushing the last hopes of students for a
return to campus. During this period, we were completely cut off from
our studies. The university's website announced a complete closure.

The losses were incalculable. Across its campuses, IUG was devastated
by bombardment that destroyed 200 laboratories and 75 computer labs,
burned 200,000 books, and erased 16,000 doctoral dissertations.

Beyond the material destruction, we lost hundreds of scholars and
academics - among them the university's president, Dr Sufian Tayeh
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Adnan al-Bursh
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and the beloved professor of English literature, Dr Refaat Alareer
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My friend Shahd, who remained in Gaza City before the ceasefire and
the return of displaced people from the south, told me what became of
the university after Israeli forces withdrew.

"The library became a place for cooking over open fires," she said.
"Books and doctoral dissertations were scattered on the ground, used
by the displaced as kindling."

In times of hunger and war, knowledge itself loses its value. Books
and dissertations, once symbols of Gaza's intellect and promise,
became fuel for survival.

Nearly a year after the war began, the university tried to fulfil its
duty towards its students.

It announced the resumption of online education despite countless
challenges: continuous displacement, severed internet connections, and
the fact that most students and academic staff had lost their homes,
with many martyred.

For us, final-year students, this return was a glimmer of hope amid
the devastation. It freed us, to some extent, from the unknown and
salvaged what remained of our humanity, which had been stolen by
hunger and fear.

Yet, everything was different. Even our class group chat had changed.
Most student questions were no longer about coursework but about where
to find a stable internet connection, or the cost of tents, rent and
basic supplies.

Grieving an old friend

We studied online, determined to keep our education alive, even as
Gaza was being decimated. The few remaining buildings - including the
Faculty of Arts, where I once attended my lectures - became shelters
for the displaced.

As the war dragged on, the bombings grew more random and deadly,
targeting the last standing buildings and towers in Gaza City. On 14
September, Israeli occupation forces committed a horrific massacre.
The university was struck by 11 heavy air strikes in three waves.

An eyewitness said: "The occupation bombed the Faculty of Arts
building twice in a row. The displaced thought the evacuation order
had ended and returned to retrieve their belongings. Then the
occupation bombed the building a third time as people were
re-entering, and no one could go in to rescue them."

The headline read: "Missing and wounded after an air strike on the
Islamic University in Gaza." Just another fleeting update on the daily
news ticker - part of the endless tally of death and destruction, with
no real action to end this disregard for Palestinian
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Even under the so-called ceasefire
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my cherished university is in ruins. Its broken labs, charred books
and empty classrooms stand as silent witnesses to what has been lost
and what may never be rebuilt.

From the first strike to this fragile pause, we have mourned our
university as one mourns a loved one. A basic right was stripped from
us in plain sight of the world. Our memories will never return; they
are forever stained with blood.

Today, IUG stands as a monument to Israel's genocide in Gaza
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unrelenting campaign that has targeted not only lives, but the very
foundations of Palestinian culture and learning, seeking to extinguish
our future long after the last bomb has fallen.

_The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye._

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_Ghada Abu Muaileq is a freelance writer and graduate of English
literature from the Islamic University in Gaza. She writes about life
under war in Gaza, documenting the experiences of a people who deserve
a life beyond that imposed by Israeli occupation. Her work has
appeared in We Are Not Numbers, Truthout and Al Jazeera English, among
other outlets._

* The Islamic University in Gaza; Destruction of the Educational
Institutions in Gaza;
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