Universities as a Military Target

The repeated incursions into Birzeit University are clear and blatant evidence that Palestinian universities bother and anger them, because they are beacons of knowledge and learning, national strongholds that carry the country's ideology, and raise its intellectual and scientific banners in the world in the name of Palestine. They compete and excel in many fields, achieve important ranks, and provide knowledge in the fields of science, development, and artificial intelligence, supplying Palestinian society with creative energies and innovations in various fields. For this reason, we find the occupation raiding universities, wreaking havoc on property, intellectual and educational tools, and classrooms, arresting students, and firing bullets and poisonous gas bombs at students and professors, in revenge against the educational institutions that build the Palestinian individual, refine them with science, knowledge, and experience, and push them to be a worthy builder for the present and future.

And it is not far-fetched, as Gaza's universities were bombed by warplanes, some of them completely destroyed, and no college, institute, or university was spared, just as schools and kindergartens were not spared from bombing, burning, and destruction.

The incident of raiding Birzeit University two days ago is not the first, nor is it the only university against which such tampering and sabotage are practiced. All universities are subjected to such heinous aggressions, which the occupation sees as national strongholds, and they are indeed fortified with science, knowledge, and human development. This drives the occupation to repeatedly raid all universities and engage in deliberate sabotage, and it goes beyond that to even more absurd acts, with abuse and beating of students, professors, and all staff working at the university.

A few days before the raid on Birzeit University, Al-Quds University witnessed a similar raid, and convoys of military tanks and soldiers heavily armed with equipment and weapons entered the university campus. The university squares turned into a military barracks, and the soldiers practiced intimidation as they indulged in their hobby of firing bullets, gas, and smoke bombs. In every university in the homeland that is raided, the scene turns into something resembling a battlefield, with heavily armed soldiers and unarmed students and academic professors.

These incursions have no justification other than being the doctrine of the army that continues its rampage against everything Palestinian, in the university as in the field and factory, and on the roads and through retaliatory military checkpoints that abuse people and disrupt their lives. In light of all this, and in the absence of serious international intervention to protect the Palestinian people from this brutal arrogance, Palestinians must face their destiny and confront these policies aimed at disturbing people's lives with repressive and humiliating measures, where no one is safe from these practices, and the evidence is daily and repeated, across the entire land with its cities, villages, and camps.