JERUSALEM
— After a video of the
Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) demolition of a large
university building in the
Gaza Strip circulated widely on social media,
prompting pushback from US officials and others, the military said on Sunday
that it would review the incident.
اضافة اعلان
The
video, which was verified by The New York Times, showed the main building of
Al-Israa University being blown up in what appeared to be a controlled
demolition. Satellite imagery by Planet Labs showed that the building was
destroyed sometime between January 10-14.
On a
video posted on
Al-Israa University’s Facebook page, it said the demolished
building housed graduate studies and undergraduate colleges. It also said other
university buildings had been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the
Israeli war, including its training hospital, medical and engineering
laboratories and cafeteria.
Additionally,
on Sunday, the IOF stated both the demolition of the building and the approval
process that led to it were ‘under review.’
A
spokesperson for the
US State Department, Matthew Miller said last week that he
had seen the video of the demolition and that it was, “Something we are raising
with the government of Israel, as we often do.”
Notably,
Al-Israa University, near
Gaza City, is one of several in the strip that have
been devastated during Israel’s war on the strip. In addition, according to the
Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education, seven universities operate in the
region.
On
October 11, 2023, Israel bombed Gaza’s oldest University, the Islamic
University. Furthermore, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Higher
Education, the University’s President and a Well-Known Physics Professor,
Sofyan Taya was killed alongside family members in early December, 2023 in an
Israeli airstrike. The IOF did not comment on the strike at the time.
Moreover,
Al-Azhar University in Gaza was once a stronghold of the Palestinian political
movement Fatah, which dominates the
Palestinian Authority (PA) that administers
parts of the Occupied West Bank. However, university officials stated that the
campus was not spared from the impact of the Israeli war.
A
political science professor at Al-Azhar University, Mkhaimar Abusada said that
one of the institute’s two campuses was heavily damaged. The other was hit
during the Israeli strikes on the adjacent Islamic University, he said.
Abusada,
who left Gaza for Cairo in November, 2023 along with his family, is still in touch with university colleagues
in a private WhatsApp channel. He stated that no one is talking about going
back to school. Instead, they swap condolences over friends and family killed
in Israeli attacks.
“In
previous wars, we’d return to the university a few days after the cease-fire.
But this time is different, everything is in a state of destruction,” Abusada
said. “Life will eventually go on. But it’s not going to be easy.”
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