Palestinian universities seek support for ceasefire

Fifteen Palestinian universities, including two in the Gaza Strip, issued a joint statement urging international academic institutions to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, guaranteed by the United Nations.

They also urged them to call for immediate entry into Gaza of sufficient amounts of life-saving humanitarian needs (including water, food, fuel, medicine), equitably distributed throughout the whole territory of the Gaza Strip.

The 15 institutions are seeking support for a demand for UN protection for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians trapped under siege in Gaza.

They also called for international academic institutions to “issue clear positions rejecting any ethnic cleansing” and for support to achieve a “just, comprehensive and lasting peace”.

In a statement dated 29 November, they wrote: “We stand resolute, determined to stop and overcome the relentless brutality that has deeply scarred our homeland during the ongoing Israeli bombings on Gaza and the military-settler attacks on our people, our homes and our institutions across all of occupied Palestine.”

In Gaza, as a result of Israel’s military operation against Hamas, the death toll had passed 16,200 by 5 December, of which 70% are said to be children and women, and more than 43,600 people had been injured, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Describing the conditions in Gaza, the universities’ letter states that Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip – “which has been besieged by Israel for the past 16 years” – in addition to the current ban on the entry of water, food, medicine and fuel, has caused “immeasurable suffering”.

The statement notes that the “cumulative effect of the bombardment has resulted in massive and ongoing killing of people, many of whom are students, faculty and staff … It also caused displacement and destruction, imperilling even the possibility of access to education for generations of Gazan children and students into the indefinite future”.

Security Council resolution vetoed

On 8 December a UN Security Council vote calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, supported by 13 out of 15 Security Council members, was vetoed by the United States.

The US called the resolution “unbalanced” and “simplistic”, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to do more to protect civilians, saying there is a “gap” between its promises and the reality on the ground.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said: “A ceasefire will be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”

He said he was shocked that while “Hamas is firing rockets at Israel” the UN is “busy debating a distorted resolution that will enable Hamas terrorists to stay in power in Gaza and does not condemn Hamas or call for the release of the hostages”, the BBC reported.

The current Israel-Palestine military conflict was sparked by a brutal 7 October attack by Hamas fighters on Israel in which 1,200 Israelis were killed, some were tortured, and more than 240 Israeli and foreign citizens were abducted.

On Wednesday the UN heard evidence of sexual violence by Hamas fighters during that attack. They were shown videos of police interviews with first responders who described a pattern of genital mutilation and the shooting of breasts and testimony of one incident of gang rape.

Some of the evidence was apparent on dead bodies, other evidence came in the testimony of survivors, including people who had attended the Super Nova music festival that was attacked, the BBC reported.

Hamas has denied that its fighters had been involved in sexual violence.

The evidence has not been verified by international investigators. A UN commission of inquiry investigating war crimes on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict has said it would focus on sexual violence by Hamas in the 7 October attacks, but Israel so far has been reluctant to cooperate with the commission.

However, Dr Cochav Elkayam Levy of the Hebrew University’s Department of International Relations, who founded the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, is working together with the International Crimes Unit 433 of the Israeli police to gather evidence of the atrocities.

This includes evidence by eyewitnesses, “testimony collected by the police, forensic evidence gathered at the crime scenes, information given by paramedics, reports from volunteers at the forensic medicine institute and testimony from Hamas terrorists captured by Israel and interrogated,” said Dr Elkayam Levy. Some of the terrorists testified to their interrogators that the “mission assigned to them included rape.”

Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, the UK and the US.

Violations of international law

The Palestinian universities’ statement asserts that the deliberate targeting of neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools, UN shelters, and universities are in violation of international law.

“Moreover, under international humanitarian law, ‘civilian objects’ such as educational sites cannot be targeted for attack. The Islamic University of Gaza was attacked along with Al-Azhar University and other universities by Israeli airstrikes,” the statement said.

However, under international law, there is a caveat that the building must not be being used for military purposes, such as sheltering troops or as firing positions or bases for housing supplies and the civilians in it must not be directly taking part in hostilities.

Israel has many times accused Hamas of operating within civilian buildings such as hospitals or schools or operating from tunnels situated underneath civilian buildings.

However, it would have to provide evidence of such military use to justify targeting civilian objects.

When the Israeli Defence Force used air strikes to blow up the Islamic University in Gaza on 16 October, it alleged in a statement accompanied by a video that the university was being used as a Hamas military training camp and to develop and produce weapons, but it did not provide evidence to substantiate this allegation.

When the Israeli Defence Force raided Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, it alleged that the hospital was being used as a base by Hamas.

Justifying the incursion, IDF spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said evidence had been found of a substantial amount of weapons contained in bags in more than one location in the hospital and ‘apparent very important intelligence including a laptop’, and the IDF provided video evidence of these, but no evidence of a command centre was found, according to a 15 November report by the Daily Mail.

Under the Rome Statute dealing with war crimes, which Israel is not a state party to, it is prohibited to intentionally direct an attack against the civilian population or civilian objects and there is a specific prohibition of intentionally attacking buildings dedicated to education.

Under the principle of proportionality in international law the legality of an action is also determined depending on the respect of the balance between the objective and the means and methods used as well as the consequences of the action.

It reflects the fact that humanitarian law forbids suffering that is caused in no direct relation to a concrete military advantage and in disproportion with it and it is designed to limit the damage to the civilian population and civilian objects. It also applies to human rights restrictions brought in during internal disturbances or to fight terrorism.

University operations paralysed

The Palestinian universities’ statement notes that most Palestinian universities in the West Bank have of necessity switched to online learning from 9 October, but it says all universities in Gaza have been “totally paralysed, as a result of no electricity, no stable internet connection and the priority of all staff members and students to care for survival”.

The statement says Palestinian universities hold Israeli universities responsible because “they have been indispensable to the regime of settler colonial oppression and apartheid, complicit in grave violations of human rights including developing weaponry, military doctrines, and legal justification for the indiscriminate, mass targeting of Palestinians”.

In the West bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, as of 5 December, 3,580 Palestinians had been arrested since 7 October. Many of those arrested are academics and students suspected of being involved in political activities.

The Jerusalem Post noted on 2 November that administrative detention of Palestinians – which it defined as incarceration without trial or charge – had risen to 2,070, since 7 October, up from 1,319 the previous month, based on Israeli Prisons Service data.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 256 Palestinians in the West Bank had been killed up to 4 December.

A framework of occupation and blockade

The universities accuse the Israeli army of “committing several crimes against Palestinians that fall within the purview of ‘war crimes’, ‘genocide’, ‘apartheid’”, and argue that it is crucial to “place these measures within the wider framework of the occupation of Palestine and blockade on Gaza”.

They said: “Israeli universities, complicit in human rights violations, should face international isolation.”

They called upon international academic institutions to take … concrete actions immediately to end the “genocidal war and Israeli settler colonialism”.

The universities state: “We urge the international academic community to fulfil its intellectual and academic duty to seek the truth and hold perpetrators of genocide accountable.”

Israelis’ ‘deep concern over discourse’

In an open letter on 1 November, directed largely to universities in Europe and the United States, the Association of University Heads, Israel, expressed “deep concern” over the discourse emanating from academia following the devastating 7 October attack by Hamas and the “inadequate response, in many cases, by academic leadership”.

They said infants, children, students, and senior citizens – Jewish, Muslim, and Christian alike – had been killed in the attack and 240 people had been taken hostage.

“In the aftermath of these horrific events, we find it disturbing that certain narratives from academic institutions misrepresent the situation, or, in the worst cases, actively target Israelis and Jews,” the university leaders said.

“We find ourselves facing a war on two fronts: one against the atrocities of Hamas, and another in the global arena of public opinion,” they added.

They noted an “alarming trend” in which Israel, “despite its right to self-defence, is mischaracterised as an oppressor”.

“This is a false equivalence between the actions of a murderous terrorist organisation and a sovereign state's right to defend its citizens, which unfortunately results in the loss of innocent Palestinian lives. Any attempt to justify or equivocate Hamas’s brutal and grotesque actions is intellectually and morally indefensible,” they said.

They stated that there is no moral equivalency. “Let’s be clear: Hamas shares no values with any Western academic institution. Hamas is an organisation that has repeatedly pledged to annihilate Israel and its people.

“Its ideology is antithetical to the values of human life and the liberal values we hold dear. Hamas funnels international aid into armament rather than to the welfare of its citizens.

“While Israel uses its weapons to shield its citizens, Hamas uses its citizens as shields for its weapons – which it hides in hospitals, schools, and mosques. It is crucial to distinguish between Hamas’ terrorist objectives and the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for statehood. The conflation of the two only serves to fuel hatred and ignorance,” they emphasised.

“What the world witnessed on October 7 were not methods to help disadvantaged peoples build better futures for themselves. The events of this terrible day should be taken as a wake-up call to all of the dangers of nihilistic organisations like Hamas and ISIS that represent the very opposite of freedom and liberty,” they stated.

The university heads voiced concern that many college campuses in America and Europe had become “breeding grounds for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments, largely fuelled by a naive and biased understanding of the conflict”, adopting Hamas as “the cause célèbre” while “Israel is demonised”.

Call for firm leadership

In another statement, published on 7 December, VERA noted that: “since the horrifying atrocity of October 7th, there has been a distressing surge in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on numerous campuses across the United States, including some of its most esteemed universities.

“Instead of offering empathy and support to Israeli and Jewish students in the wake of the brutal massacre of Jewish communities in their homeland, campuses have witnessed protests advocating for the annihilation of the State of Israel (“from the river to the sea”) and endorsing terrorist activities against Israeli citizens (‘intifada’).”

They said they were astonished when American university presidents (especially those from Harvard, MIT and Pennsylvania) who were asked at Congressional hearings “whether a call for the genocide of the Jewish people aligns with their institutions’ codes of conduct, struggled to provide a straightforward ‘no’ and instead offered vague responses, suggesting that the response depends on the context”.

Guardians of human rights

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor in global thought and comparative philosophies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, told University World News the Palestinian academics’ call is a “cry for help from the abyss”.

Adib-Moghaddam said: “Many Palestinian colleagues have already been killed in this campaign, which is geared to a new, horrific policy of mass destruction.”

One example is the death on 2 November of UNESCO Chair for Physical, Astrophysical and Space Sciences in Palestine Professor Sufyan Tayeh, the president of the Islamic University of Gaza, who was reported to have been killed in Jabalia along with all his family members by an Israeli airstrike, according to an Instagram post by Hidden Palestine.

“The call is in many ways echoed by Israeli colleagues and universities,” Adib-Moghaddam added.

He said that “against all odds” there was a “scholarly consensus that condemns acts of inhumanity without political and ideological distortion”.

Adib-Moghaddam concluded: “An act of terrorism does not legitimate mass killings of civilians. There is no justification for civilian deaths, no agenda that can legitimate killing the innocent.

“Leading scholars from all over the world agree that the violation of the sacred value of human life must be condemned with the same stealthy conviction everywhere.”