New report documents scholasticide in Gaza – and the collective resilience sustaining Palestinian higher education
LONDON, 22 June 2026 – Friends of Palestinian Universities has published a major new multidisciplinary report documenting the systematic destruction of Gaza’s higher education sector and the continuing efforts of Palestinian universities, students and academics to sustain teaching, learning and research amid genocide.
Scholasticide in Gaza: The Systematic Destruction of Palestinian Higher Education and the Continuation of Collective Resilience brings together contributions from leading scholars of education, law and history from Palestine, the UK, North America and South Africa, including academics from Gaza’s universities.
Edited by Chandni Desai, Omar Shweiki, Abdel Razzaq Takriti and Leon Tikly, the report examines the targeting of Gaza’s universities since October 2023, situating it within a longer history of colonial assault on Palestinian education, and calls for urgent international action to defend Palestinian higher education.
Scholasticide in Gaza: The Systematic Destruction of Palestinian Higher Education and the Continuation of Collective Resilience
June 2026
The report’s central finding is that, since October 2023, Israel has carried out the systematic destruction of Gaza’s higher education sector as a constitutive dimension of the genocide. It names this destruction scholasticide: a settler-colonial assault on Palestinian institutions, infrastructure, personnel, archives and intellectual and cultural life through which Palestinian society reproduces itself across generations.
As the report argues, scholasticide is not collateral damage. It is a deliberate strategy of annihilation and erasure, targeting education as a foundation of Palestinian collective life, identity and future-making.
Producing this report made undeniably clear that the systematic annihilation of Gaza’s higher education sector — scholasticide — is not incidental to genocide, it is constitutive of it, and constitutes direct evidence of genocidal intent under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
— Dr Chandni Desai, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Drawing on a range of sources, the report finds that Gaza’s entire higher education system has faced near-total destruction. Since October 2023, all 19 recognised institutions have been systematically targeted. Every one of Gaza’s university campuses has been severely damaged or completely destroyed, while university colleges and intermediate colleges have sustained severe damage rendering them non-operational.
The human toll has been devastating. More than 1,372 university students and 246 academics and university staff, including archivists, have been killed since October 2023. Among them are three university presidents, including Professor Sufyan Tayeh and Professor Muhammad Eid Shabir of the Islamic University of Gaza, and Professor Said Al-Zibda of the University College of Applied Sciences, as well as nine college deans.
Gaza’s academic community has also suffered mass displacement, injury, imprisonment, and the destruction of the material conditions required for teaching, research, and professional formation.
The Palestinian people has been subjected to scholasticide, the systematic assault on education, for more than a century. This heinous crime has now morphed into a constitutive component of the Gaza Genocide. Never before have we witnessed such a total attempt at annihilating an entire educational system.
— Dr Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Associate Professor of History and Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies, Rice University
While the scale and intensity of destruction since October 2023 is unprecedented, the report argues that scholasticide in Palestine must be understood as part of a much longer history.
The report traces scholasticide as a century-long process in Palestine, from British colonial rule and the Nakba through occupation, fragmentation and siege. In this context, the report shows how attacks on education have long been used to undermine Palestinian social reproduction, national development and self-determination.
Collective resilience in the face of destruction
Alongside documenting destruction, the report highlights the extraordinary collective resilience of Gaza’s academic community. Despite the scale of devastation, teaching and research have been sustained by the determined efforts of faculty, students and staff. The report documents the work of the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza (ECUG), established by formal mandate of the presidents of Gaza’s three non-profit universities, and the ISNAD programme, established in partnership with Taawon and the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, which continues to support tens of thousands of students.
These efforts demonstrate that Gaza’s universities remain living institutions: damaged and displaced, but not erased.
The report highlights the remarkable resilience of Palestinian academics, students, and institutions, who continue to sustain education under unimaginable conditions. Documentation is essential for accountability, justice, and the protection and rebuilding of Palestinian higher education.
— Dr Ahmed Abu Shabaan, Dean, Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Gaza
A call for international action
The report also examines the international response to scholasticide and argues that support for Palestinian higher education has remained disproportionately small relative to the scale of destruction.
It calls on universities and academic institutions, academic and faculty associations and unions, international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, governments, the European Union and UNESCO to formally recognise scholasticide as a dimension of genocide, support Gaza’s existing universities, direct substantial resources to Palestinian institutions, treat higher education as a humanitarian priority, and guarantee their full participation in global academic life.
The report concludes that the reconstruction and development of Gaza’s higher education sector cannot be achieved for Palestinians, but only with and through Palestinian higher education institutions themselves. Palestinian sector leadership and ownership, grounded in the principles of self-determination and liberation must guide all engagement with the sector.
The report highlights the chronic neglect of Palestinian universities in international aid priorities, in stark contrast to the scale of support mobilised for Ukrainian higher education by the EU, national governments and the international academy. It calls for urgent, direct institutional support and partnerships to sustain and rebuild Gaza’s universities, for the future of higher education in Gaza and every sector that depends on it.
— Dr Helen Murray, Research Fellow, The Policy Institute, King’s College London
The report provides a much-needed record of Israel’s systematic destruction of the higher education system in Gaza and of the collective resilience of Palestinian academics and students in the face of scholasticide. It is a call to action for the international community to provide the urgent assistance called for by the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza
— Prof Leon Tikly, Professor in Education, University of Bristol; UNESCO Chair in Transforming Knowledge and Research for Just and Sustainable Futures
Further Information
Report
Report Editors
Chandni Desai (University of Toronto), Omar Shweiki (Friends of Palestinian Universities), Abdel Razzaq Takriti (Rice University), and Leon Tikly (University of Bristol).
Report Authors
Ahmed Abu Shaban (Al-Azhar University-Gaza), Sarah Ali (University of Cambridge), Chandni Desai (University of Toronto), Ahmed Kamal Junina (Al Aqsa University), Mazen Masri (City St George’s, University of London), Helen Murray (King’s College London), Pauline Rose (University of Cambridge), , Omar Shweiki (Friends of Palestinian Universities), Nimer Sultany (SOAS University of London), Abdel Razzaq Takriti (Rice University), Leon Tikly (University of Bristol), and Salim Vally (University of Johannesburg).
Friends of Palestinian Universities
Friends of Palestinian Universities builds UK and international academic solidarity, partnership, and exchange with Palestinian higher education institutions facing systematic attack. We work to support the resilience of Palestinian scholars and students, strengthen international cooperation, and uphold the principles of freedom, equity, and justice for the future of education in Palestine.
For media enquiries, interviews, or further information, please contact:
Heba Hayek
Senior Communications Officer
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