Israel may burn Gaza schools, but Palestinians shall resist

My school in the Khan Younis refugee camp was one of my favorite places. There were dedicated teachers, and I was so passionate about learning that education became my lifelong pursuit. Beyond the joy of learning, the school was also a place for us Palestinians to connect with those we don't easily reach: Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Palestinians from our history, and Palestinian writers, poets, and intellectuals in exile who tell our stories. Education is how we weave our national fabric.

Palestinians are known for having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. They are often referred to as the most educated refugees in the world. Education is both a part of our national story and a method of passing it on.

Each year, the tawjihi (high school national exam) is a pivotal moment in the Palestinian liberation calendar. Every year, the release of the tawjihi results sparks nationwide celebrations, showcasing and honoring the achievements of high-achieving students. This moment of euphoria transcends individual success; it's a collective affirmation that our students can persevere and excel despite the relentless challenges they face.

However, in the summer of 2024, for the first time since 1967, there was no tawjihi exam and no celebrations in Gaza. The destruction of Gaza's education system by Israel has brought immense suffering and despair to hundreds of thousands of children and young people. Yet, the Palestinian thirst for education is so enduring that even in the midst of genocide, they have not stopped trying to learn.

Whenever I think of this indomitable spirit, I think of my cousin Jihan, a self-employed civil society worker with a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations. She and her three daughters have been living in a tent in al-Mawasi for the past 10 months. Her husband is a doctor, and their son was forcibly taken by the Israeli army early in the genocide. Despite the miserable conditions of life in the displacement camp, she and her daughters decided to help students get an education despite the catastrophe unfolding. With the help of solar panels, they set up a small charging station and a hotspot where anyone can pay to charge their devices and use the internet.

Two of their regulars are my husband’s relatives: Shahd, a multimedia student, and her brother Bilal, a medical student. They used to study at Al-Azhar University and Al-Aqsa University, respectively, but both universities were destroyed by the Israeli army. Last year, they joined an online learning program launched by academic institutions in Gaza, which has enabled 90,000 university students to complete their higher education.

Shahd and Bilal told me that they have to walk for hours to reach Jihan’s charging station to get their course notes. Each time they leave their tent to make the journey, they embrace their family tightly, knowing they might not return. Their parents worry, especially about Bilal, as young men are frequently targeted by drone strikes. To help keep him safe, Shahd sometimes makes the journey alone, carrying both her and her brother's phones to charge and download coursework.

The lines are long, with hundreds of young people waiting for enough power to charge their laptops or phones. The internet signal is weak, so download speeds are slow. The whole process can sometimes take an entire day. As the eldest daughter, Shahd dreams of graduating and making her parents proud, bringing a ray of light to their dark world. Her father was recently diagnosed with colon cancer, and the family now faces another layer of fear and loss, given the collapse of the health system and the genocide.

Shahd told me she still has hope that through this small victory of graduating, she might be able to change this cruel reality. She is fully aware of the risks involved. “Every step I take, I wonder if I’ll come back. My dream is to finish my degree, graduate, and find a job to help my family,” she told me. “I see people burned, disfigured, evaporated, or even left to stray animals. I see body parts hanging from wires, on rooftops, or being carried in animal-drawn carts or on shoulders. I pray I won’t die like that. I have to die whole, so my mother can say goodbye to me and I can be buried with dignity,” she added.

The mass killing of students and attacks on schools or universities is a tragedy anywhere. But in Palestine, where education is more than just a right or a dream, such attacks also target our national identity. Israel knows this well, and the destruction of Gaza’s education system has been part of its long-term strategy to erase Palestinian identity, history, and intellectual vitality.

My generation also experienced Israeli attacks on education, though nowhere near as lethal and destructive. From 1987 to 1993, during the First Intifada, Israel imposed a complete closure on all universities in Gaza and the West Bank as a form of collective punishment, denying tens of thousands of students their right to higher education. At the same time, Israeli military curfews confined us to our homes every night from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Israeli soldiers were given orders to shoot any violators. Schools were raided, attacked, and closed for weeks or months.

Despite this violence and destruction, education became an act of resistance. Like the other 18,000 tawjihi students in Gaza in 1989, I studied relentlessly. I obtained the high scores needed to pursue a prestigious degree, which usually meant medicine or engineering. My family was ecstatic. To celebrate my achievement, my father prepared a large pot of tea, bought a box of Salwana chocolates, and rushed to the family diwan in the Khan Younis camp, where the mukhtar of our family served Arabic coffee. People also came to the house to congratulate my mother. However, that brief joy soon turned to despair. Due to the university closures, I had to wait a long five years, clinging to my dream of continuing my education.

Mahmoud Darwish was right: Palestinians suffer from an incurable disease called hope. Paradoxically, the restrictions of the occupation during the First Intifada created fertile ground for activism, resistance, and community work. In the absence of formal institutions, young people denied a university education joined educational committees formed by civil society throughout Palestine. We converted homes, mosques, and community halls into makeshift classrooms. Often, we had to climb walls and sneak through alleys to reach students without being detected by Israeli soldiers enforcing the curfews. Professors also resisted by opening their homes to students, risking arrest and imprisonment to ensure learning continued. Tens of thousands of people enrolled, studied, and even graduated under these harrowing conditions.

When universities finally reopened in 1994, my six siblings and I were among the first to begin our studies. This was a moment of triumph for my family, though it put a heavy financial burden on my father, who had to pay tuition for so many of us. The reopening of universities was more than a restoration of education; it was a reclaiming of a vital part of Palestinian identity and resistance.

The term “scholasticide,” coined by Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi during the 2009 Gaza war, captures the reality we have faced for decades. Scholasticide is the deliberate erasure of indigenous knowledge and cultural continuity. It is an attempt to sever a people’s connection to their collective knowledge and historical identity. Today, the reality is even more severe. All 12 universities in Gaza are in ruins, and at least 88% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

The physical destruction of infrastructure is concurrent with efforts to erase the legitimacy of the institutions that provide education. In late October, Israel effectively banned the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Given that this UN agency operates 284 schools in Gaza and 96 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, this ban is yet another blow to the intellectual future of Palestine. Yet, as we have resisted in the past, Palestinians in Gaza continue to resist this systematic erasure of their educational and cultural lifelines. Education is more than just a tool for survival; it is the thread that binds our nation together, a bridge to our history, and the foundation of our hopes for liberation.

When I think of the immense destruction of Gaza’s education system and all the students who continue to learn against all odds, I am reminded of the lines from Samiha al-Qasim’s (known as the “poet of Palestinian resistance”) 1970 poem “Enemies of the Sun.” “You can steal my heritage, burn my books, my poems, feed my flesh to dogs, and spread nets of terror on the roofs of my village, enemies of the sun, but I will not compromise, and until the last pulse in my veins, I will resist.” Palestinian students will continue this resistance, walking for hours every day to get an education. It is the spirit of a people who refuse to be erased as individuals, as a nation, as a historical fact, and as a future reality.