International Scholars Release Report on ‘Scholasticide in Gaza’
A new report by an international group of scholars examines the impact of Israel's genocidal war in Gaza on the territory's higher education sector, urging international organizations to recognize "scholasticide" as a dimension of genocide and to place Gaza's existing universities at the center of future recovery efforts.
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Titled Scholasticide in Gaza, the report documents the systematic destruction of Palestinian higher education alongside the continued resilience of Gaza's academic community.
Produced by Friends of Palestinian Universities, the report comprises eight chapters covering topics including collective educational resilience during the war, the international response to scholasticide, and testimonies from Palestinian academics, university administrators and students.
The report is co-authored by Ahmed Abu Shaban of Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Sarah Ali of the University of Cambridge, Chandni Desai of the University of Toronto, and Helen Murray of King's College London.
In the foreword, Professor Karma Nabulsi writes that the report documents "the total criminal destruction of the educational and cultural heritage of Palestinian society in Gaza" while amplifying the voices of the territory's university sector.
She also describes the report as providing practical recommendations for individuals and institutions seeking to support Palestinian higher education.
According to the report, scholasticide is "not collateral damage but a deliberate strategy of systematic annihilation and erasure of education," arguing that the destruction of educational institutions is intrinsic to genocide rather than incidental to armed conflict.
The report states that more than 1,372 university students and over 246 academics and university staff have been killed since October 2023. It also says all 19 recognized higher education institutions in Gaza have been targeted, with every university campus either severely damaged or completely destroyed.
While praising Gaza's academic community for the “extraordinary resilience”, the report argues that the international response has fallen far short of the scale of the devastation.
Among its recommendations, the report calls on academic associations, international aid organizations, governments, the European Union and UNESCO to formally recognize scholasticide as a dimension of genocide under international law and to prioritize the restoration and support of Gaza's existing universities in reconstruction efforts.
