Despite war horrors, hope remains for Gaza’s universities

Hassan El-Nabih

It has been a year now of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft, tanks and warships have been indiscriminately bombarding the whole Strip. All aspects of life have been tremendously impacted. Tens of thousands of civilian buildings have been destroyed, including houses, schools, universities, mosques, churches, hospitals, bakeries, and United Nations shelters.

Brutal Israeli attacks, along with the illegal inhumane blockade, have spared no Palestinian. The official death toll stands at nearly 42,000, with about 100,000 injured and 10,000 missing. The majority of the casualties are women and children.

Although I have never been affiliated with any militant or political group, my own house was destroyed by an Israeli warplane on October 23, 2023. Since then, I have been living with my large family in deplorable conditions at a UN school shelter.

Besides the trauma of homelessness and displacement, we were devastated by the loss of my beloved mother. She fell ill and could not receive the medical care she needed because the Israeli military has largely decimated Gaza’s healthcare system. Her condition deteriorated, and she passed away on December 1, 2023.

In addition, I have suffered a profound professional loss: my university, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) has been destroyed. It is one out of 18 institutions of higher education in Gaza, which served about 87,000 students before Israel reduced them to ruins.I joined IUG’s English Department in 1997 after I returned from the United States, where I had finished an MA in Linguistics at California State University, Fresno. Then I obtained a PhD in language development from Boston College and returned to IUG, where I continued to teach and do research, publishing many articles in local and international journals and participating in numerous conferences, symposia and workshops. I have also supervised and served as an examiner of several MA theses in applied linguistics.

IUG has 11 faculties, serving about 17,000 students, 63 percent of them women. Throughout the years, it has offered an excellent academic environment, making use of various technologies such as computer labs, e-learning Moodle and videoconferencing and other high-quality facilities, such as libraries, gardens, gyms and playgrounds. It has awarded students with physical, visual and hearing disabilities scholarships and assisted them through a professional special needs office.

The English Department is the largest at the IUG, serving about 1,500 students in six different programmes: BA in English, BA in English with a minor in translation, BA in English with a minor in media and journalism, BEd in teaching English, MA in linguistics and MA in translation.

I have always had a great passion for teaching and maintained good relationships with my students; for me, teaching is a mission. I consider IUG my second home. Seeing it in ruins has broken my heart.

In October 2023, Israeli fighter jets attacked IUG, destroying several buildings. Then in November, Israeli ground troops with bulldozers and tanks invaded western Gaza City, razing more buildings and setting others on fire. When they withdrew from the area two weeks later, I went to see what was left of IUG. I was overwhelmed with grief, unable to believe my eyes: everything was gone!

Over the past 12 months, I have not been able to teach a single class. Even during the COVID pandemic, when the university was shut down, I was still able to give lectures online. My YouTube channel still has recordings of three online courses I have taught: Semantics and Lexicology, English Grammar 2, and Psycho-Sociolinguistics.

Since the start of this war, Israel has restlessly targeted Gaza’s infrastructure, including telecommunication, which has made it impossible for instructors to teach online. Just to check my email and WhatsApp messages, I have to walk or bike a long distance to purchase an internet ticket and use a very low-speed connection.

Despite the grave circumstances over the past year, I have tried to stay in touch with my students. We communicate through phone calls, text messaging or WhatsApp and sometimes in person. We exchange greetings, inquire about health, and talk about IUG and the English Department, unable to hide our sorrow and indignation. However, I remain optimistic and determined not to give up.

Optimism is a source of resilience, which we Palestinian educators need to nurture in order to support our students and help them cope with stressful conditions.

Even in the darkest of times, there is hope. That is why I use the present tense in this article when I talk about my university. IUG is, not was.

I see several reasons to be optimistic.

First, it is not the first time Gaza’s universities have been targeted by the Israeli army. Before the present war, Israel launched four other aggressive assaults on the Gaza Strip in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021. In each of these wars, Gaza’s universities were severely damaged and prevented from functioning to their full potential. However, thanks to collective efforts, university buildings were restored and the educational process successfully resumed.

Even though Israel’s attacks on Gaza continue, emergency measures have been taken. The Palestinian Ministry of Education and several Palestinian academic institutions have circulated petitions against Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s universities, appealing to international organisations and academic institutions to intervene swiftly and take effective measures to ensure Palestinian students’ right to education.

Second, many journalists and human rights activists have reported on Israel’s targeting of Palestinian universities. These and other Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights have been condemned worldwide. This has strengthened international solidarity with the Palestinian people and will undoubtedly help us with the future reconstruction process.

Third, several leading Palestinian universities in the West Bank have expressed their readiness to support higher education in the Gaza Strip. Last March, Birzeit University launched its “Rebuilding Hope” initiative, which aims to provide resources to support Gaza’s institutional infrastructure and assist researchers and students in accessing the knowledge necessary to complete their academic journeys.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and several local and international universities have adopted the initiative, and fortunately, a few thousand students from Gaza’s universities, including IUG, have already started online learning.

Fourth, IUG has also encouraged students to apply for Erasmus+ exchange scholarships which provide the opportunity to study for a semester in Europe. Some of my students asked me to write letters of recommendation for them; I did so with great pleasure.

I have shared all this promising information with students and acquaintances in Gaza. I have also referred English major students to my online courses uploaded onto YouTube.

Recently, one of my students sent me this WhatsApp message:

Dear Professor, I have decided to continue your Grammar 2 course on my own. [We started in September 2023 but couldn’t finish it because of the war.] These days I am watching your YouTube recordings, and I am doing quite well. I am interested in more practice; I need the extra grammar exercises file you previously uploaded onto the Moodle, which is inaccessible now. Unfortunately, I lost my laptop with all my files in an Israeli attack on my family’s house. Could you please send me the file?

What a remarkably resilient girl! I thanked her and praised her strong motivation and true affection for learning. I sent her the file and told her not to hesitate to ask me for help.

Similarly, I recently called one of my MA students, whose thesis I am supervising. I encouraged her to finalise her thesis for the viva voce. She happily welcomed the idea. By taking reasonable precautions, I feel we can organise this academic event somewhere in Gaza, even in a tent at a school shelter.