Ahmed Abu Shaban, Al-Azhar University, Gaza; Ahmed Junina, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza; Bassem Abu Dagga, York St Johns University, York; Emanuela Girei, Liverpool John Moores University; Nazmi Al-Masri, Islamic University, Gaza; Susannah Pickering-Saqqa, University of East London

This article originated in an ongoing collaboration among the authors, which includes organising a panel and a workshop at the DSA conference in June 2025, a panel at the GDI student conference for Palestine in September 2025, and two sessions at the DSA conference 2026. On all three occasions we aimed to provide a platform for understanding and critical reflection on higher education (HE) in Gaza, led by  Palestinian colleagues, and to explore what meaningful collaboration and solidarity would look like.

We first situate what happened during the genocide in the concept of scholasticide, also described by UN experts, and then reflect on key takeaways emerging from our collaboration.

In the Palestinian context, education serves as a source of life, continuity, and collective identity, providing the intellectual and cultural foundation upon which Palestinian resilience and future development depend. Education for Palestinians is “what water and roots are to olive trees”—a source of life, continuity, and collective identity.

While the targeting of PHEIs has a long historical precedent, the current scale of destruction is without parallel. UNESCO estimated that approximately 95% of higher education institutions in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including  research facilities, laboratories and libraries. Approximately 22% of higher education staff members have been killed, injured, or detained. Thousands of them are injured without receiving due care because of the continued Israeli blockade of humanitarian assistance. In addition, academic freedom in Gaza has deteriorated dramatically and has been classified as “completely restricted” since 2024.

This is the context in which the term “scholasticide” is used, referring to the deliberate destruction of the Palestinian educational system and institutions, by targeted killing or detention of educational staff and students; physical destruction of educational facilities; and systematic disruption of educational processes by Israel. Scholasticide represents an assault on knowledge systems, professional futures, and the collective capacity of Palestinians to rebuild their society. Removal of Palestinian Institutional agency (the capacity of Palestinian universities to lead and govern their higher education system)  is a key element of scholasticide. For academics and students, the impact is both material and profoundly emotional. Universities that once served as intellectual, cultural, and community hubs have been reduced to ruins, intensifying the broader experience of violence and dispossession.

Palestinian colleagues describe being an academic during genocide as something “almost unspeakable”—an experience that escapes our lexicon. Words repeatedly reappear in academic testimonies from Gaza: “beyond imagination,” “agonies,” “bitterness,” “fear.” In addition to the bombing, the losses, the starvation and lack of basic necessities, the continuous displacement has not meant simply moving from one place to another; it has meant losing “everything… no memories, no furniture, nothing,” stripping life down to its barest elements. The psychological toll is immense: the exhaustion of sleepless nights, uncertainty and the constant struggle to secure food, water, shelter, and safety. This is accompanied by the emotional burden of feeling let down and betrayed, sometimes more painful than the war.

Yet Palestinian academics insist that PHEIs are not defined solely by their buildings and infrastructure. Its essence lies in the agency of the people who sustain it—the educators, administrators, and students and their families whose identities and aspirations persist despite the devastation. The determination of Gaza’s universities to continue teaching amid bombardment and displacement means seeding hope and asserting Palestinian identity and existence (Sumud (صمود – steadfastness). Higher education reinforces a strategic and ethical commitment to keeping educated youth and intellectuals rooted in their homeland, by producing and disseminating knowledge—especially local knowledge that reflects and strengthens national culture, existence and identity. PHEIs have become a vital institutional and sustainable source for providing psycho-educational and emotional support plus  essential training and skills for youth living under siege, enabling personal and professional development, and contributing to local economic resilience, growth, and long-term investment in human resources .

They reject the idea that the destruction of buildings signalled the end of higher education in Gaza. Amid daily survival, educators continue to teach, advise, assess, and supervise students—often through unstable internet connections and improvised systems. Their ability to sustain education rested on values they repeatedly named: loyalty, resilience, flexibility, and collective resistance and an acute sense of responsibility and obligation to their students beyond teaching. Students, too, demonstrated remarkable perseverance. We heard, for example, at DSA 2026, the reflection that “one hand cannot clap alone” from students who played a central role in the joint publication of a poetry collection by the Islamic University Gaza and Glasgow University.

Collectively, Universities in Gaza established an Emergency Committee to preserve academic agency, coordinate their response, uphold institutional autonomy, and Palestinian leadership in reconstruction and future planning and efforts.

Based on our discussions, we have identified four broad principles that could inform our understanding of academic solidarity. While rooted in the lived experience and knowledge of Palestinian academics, these are neither exhaustive nor prescriptive.

Independence is not only territorial but also epistemological—the right to create, teach, and circulate one’s own knowledge (Said, 1994; Fanon, 1963). Amid ongoing systematic destruction, Palestinian academics stress that solidarity must be active, long-term, and rooted in respect for Palestinian leadership. PHEIs strengthen self-determination by cultivating intellectual autonomy and supporting collective aspirations for political, economic, and cultural freedom under occupation. They are essential in safeguarding and transmitting Palestinian cultural heritage—both material and immaterial—as a foundation of identity and a form of resistance against erasure, colonisation, and cultural appropriation.

Meaningful solidarity demands more than declarations. It requires communicating, networking and forming genuine partnerships, sharing resources, supporting rebuilding efforts, and ensuring Palestinians remain the primary decision-makers shaping the future of their higher education system. This is an essential element of resisting attempts to restructure Palestinian knowledge system, such as initiatives by the Portland Trust and the Board of Peace and the Norwegian Consortium for Higher Education in Palestine (NorPal)

Solidarity should be more than statements; it should include action, sustainable partnerships, and an institutionalised commitment to contributing to the rebuilding of the HE sector in Gaza. There is plenty of evidence from colleagues in Gaza of partnerships that work. Among the various initiatives that embed solidarity in action is the Reconnect project. With the support of international volunteers, the programme offers students at Al-Aqsa University mentoring, academic talks, and psychosocial support to help them stay engaged and nurture their intellectual lives.

Other inspiring initiatives were led by the University of Glasgow, including publishing several joint research articles through Education in Conflict project and supporting MA Students in the English Language Department, training them on using qualitative research, remote supervision of more than 10 MA’s students, providing Access to e-libraries and organising and funding Oxford ELLT Digital – English Level Test Online for 17 students. An ongoing initiative is  Voices from Gaza  – a new platform celebrating creative and talented writers from Palestine.

The LINEs for Palestine project, funded by the British Council, provides mentoring, academic skills development, and established internet and learning hubs across the Gaza Strip for students and young professionals. Other initiatives include virtual research fellowships (University of Bristol), online capacity building courses to Gaza students – Hope and Healing project (Northumbria University), and online co-teaching and remote supervision (University of Manchester). Likewise, ActforPal’s Rifqa (companionship) programme works to support early career scholars in Palestine. These initiatives share a commitment to helping academic staff and students “reconnect and re-engage” with the academic world.

An early career researcher in veterinary medicine described days spent wandering in search of an internet connection, studying when everyone was sleeping and in overcrowded spaces, while being displaced many times and losing relatives without the chance to say goodbye. And yet she keeps going to the clinic each day without pay and students keep going to classes. As many students told us, including those who were now studying in Dublin, education in Gaza is more than education: it is also hope, resistance and community.

This has implications for what solidarity with those working in Gaza HE means. It must be lived as an ethical obligation, rooted in human conscience. It needs to be grounded in universal values, confronting injustice and opposing racism, or what Jabiri terms “anti-Palestinianism”

The message to UK and Irish academics is unambiguous: support Palestinian universities in protecting their identity, resilience, and presence on their land. Solidarity means standing with them as they rebuild, defending academic freedom, and ensuring that Palestinian higher education not only endures but thrives once more. In this context, remaining silent becomes a form of complicity.