How is the destruction of Gaza affecting scientific progress and academia? Photo credit: Oxford Action for Palestine
As with many university campuses worldwide, the University of Oxford has seen students set up camp in support of a free Palestine. Since the sixth of May, Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) has established two “liberated zones”, the first in front of the still-open Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers, and the second situated outside the Radcliffe Camera since the 19th of May.
Oxford students with OA4P protesting in front of the Sheldonian, other Oxford students in academic gowns walk past down Broad Street. Photo credit: OA4P
Both encampments host not only many students studying in tents and keffiyehs (traditional scarves that have become symbols of Palestinian cultural identity and solidarity with Palestinian resistance), but also daily discussions, talks (often led by Oxford professors, scholars, and activists), poetry readings, film screenings, and vigils. OA4P has also organised peaceful protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, walk-outs, a “die-in”, and requests to meet with University Administration concerning their demands. At these two sites, the goal is to both provide education about Palestinian history and to demand change from Oxford.
Among calls for disclosure of university-wide assets and a commitment to divestment from arms companies and those complicit in Israel’s occupation and violence, OA4P’s demands also require the University to actively support and rebuild Palestinian academic scholarship and scientific research both in Gaza and at Oxford through studentships, funds, exchanges, collaborations, fellowships and partnerships (OA4P Website).
The Impact on Education: From Oxford to Gaza
Scientific learning and research in Gaza has been impeded by a great number of challenges—lack of water, food, fuel, travel restrictions, limited funding, no infrastructure, and inaccessibility of the laboratories, equipment, and global collaboration required for scientific progress, to name only a few. Despite this, as stated by Somaya Albhaisi writing about the impact of the genocide in Gaza on scientific endeavours, ‘Palestinians remain steadfast in their determination to pursue science’.
As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) follow up on their vows to wrest control of the Strip, the destruction of Gaza is evident and extensively documented. It has clearly captured the attention of students, faculty, and staff of higher education institutions across the globe, as with Oxford’s OA4P. Over the months of violence in Gaza, many reports and personal accounts are being shared. An impact frequently overlooked, despite once being a powerful asset for Palestine and its people, is on academia and the scientific institutions of Palestine.
With students and faculty displaced or killed, university facilities brought to rubble, and ongoing attacks from the IDF, higher education and scientific research in Gaza has been brought to a screeching halt. One student originally from the United Arab Emirates recounts her time at the University of Palestine studying clinical pharmacy, ‘the two years I spent at the University of Palestine were the best for me… What will become of my two years of study, of which I have no proof? Has everything gone up in smoke?’. Yuval Dor, who researched diabetes and diseases before the events of October seventh, explains for Science, ‘it is heartbreaking to shift from focusing on disease diagnosis to contemplating methods for identifying the DNA of victims’.
News outlets, such as Middle East Eye (MEE) and The Nation, heritage organizations, and human rights groups have referred to the targeting of museums, cultural sites, religious buildings, infrastructure, and academic institutions as Israel’s “cultural genocide”. Such accusations, however, are not new; as scholars such as Dr Daud Abdullah in a volume on cultural genocide from 2019 and historian Dr Lawrence Davidson in his 2012 book on the topic also use this terminology to describe Israel’s actions. Using this framework too, MEE highlights the recent destruction of academia in Gaza —, ‘institutions that in total have more than 90,000 students enrolled have been completely flattened by Israeli air strikes and 95 university professors have been killed’. NBC News also documents the effects of Israeli military campaigns on the education systems in Palestine. Journalist Michele Chabin in Science addresses the ‘shock waves’ felt by scientific research globally and cites the former education minister for the Palestinian Authority explaining that Gaza’s ‘scientific infrastructure is in ruins’. Gaza’s oldest higher education institution, the Islamic University of Gaza (established in 1972), for example, had more than 17,000 students, 165 academic programs, and 33 research centres before it was targeted by Israeli air strikes. The Islamic University of Gaza was reportedly destroyed during a truce between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military also cited links between University leadership and Hamas in their justification of targeting the academic institution, but according to correspondents with The New York Times, the IDF targeted all universities in Gaza indiscriminately.
Al-Azhar University, another major academic institution in Gaza, was reportedly also targeted despite its ties to Fatah, a political opponent to Hamas that ‘works closely with Israel on security’.
By 2022, the largest public university in Gaza, Al-Aqsa University, included over 30 laboratory spaces and enrolled over 20,000 students in their several faculties, including the Faculty of Applied Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Arts and Human Sciences. In the first months of 2024, several campus buildings serving as shelter for Palestinian civilians were reported to be the target of IDF fire. Al-Aqsa University was also the site of footage taken and uploaded to social media by IDF soldiers of their book burning.
In addition to the destruction of several buildings at the University, many academics, scientists, and educators were also killed in Gaza. Among the Islamic University of Gaza’s most impactful scientific researchers was physicist and professor Dr Sofyan Taya who was globally recognised in the field of optics with publications as recent as April of 2024 on optical sensors. He served as a chair in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Space Sciences for UNESCO, was among the most-cited scientists globally in 2021–2022 according to Stanford University, and was given a prestigious fellowship at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. In December of 2023, news outlets reported that Israeli air strikes killed Taya and his family.
Palestinian students studying with a microscope.
In conservation and earth sciences, Dr Wiesam Essa worked as part of the Department of Geography at Al-Aqsa University and at the University of Manchester in 2021 as a visiting fellow under the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA). At Manchester and through funding from The Royal Geographical Society, he was applying urbanisation research to address environmental challenges and analysing remote sensing for water usage in Palestine. CARA was in the process of securing another academic position in the UK for him, but in January of 2024, Essa was killed when his home in Gaza was struck by Israeli bombs.
Oxford’s Role in Supporting Palestinian Scholars
At Oxford, initiatives are already in place such as the Oxford-Palestine (OxPal) partnership which aims to develop medical education through connections between students and doctors at Oxford and those in Palestine.
Oxford students with OA4P holding images of destroyed universities in Gaza, personal accounts, and obituaries of Palestinian academics during protests at the Sheldonian on May 28th. Photo credit: Madeleine Jane
OA4P, too, makes clear their demands regarding the University’s support for Palestinian scholars and scientists through studentships, fellowships, and collaborations, bringing focus not only to the positionality of the University of Oxford itself but also to the shock waves that Israel’s actions have had on scientific research and communities globally. At the Radcliffe Camera, massive banners read ‘Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza’ and ‘Israel has killed 5479 students 261 teachers 95 profs 3 uni presidents’. On the 28th of May, OA4P members gathered by the Sheldonian in protest, many clothed in their academic gowns, holding signs and banners with personal quotes, accounts from Palestinian students, and obituaries documenting the devastation to Palestinian education, schools, and people.
As leadership of the University meet, OA4P continues to demand Oxford’s support of Palestinian students and scholars believing, like Albhaisi, that ‘our responsibility as scientists and researchers is to support Palestinian science now’.
