JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t elaborate when he said this week that Israel would maintain indefinite “overall security responsibility” in Gaza once it removes Hamas from power in response to a deadly Oct. 7 cross-border raid by the Islamic militant group.
Experience suggests that any Israeli security role will be seen by the Palestinians and much of the international community as a form of military occupation. This could complicate any plans to hand governing responsibility to the Palestinian Authority or friendly Arab states, and risk bogging Israel down in a war of attrition.
Even if Israel succeeds in ending Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza and dismantling much of its militant infrastructure, the presence of Israeli forces is likely to fuel an insurgency, as it did from 1967 to 2005. That period saw two Palestinian uprisings and the rise of Hamas.
Benny Gantz, of Israel’s three-member War Cabinet, acknowledged Wednesday that there’s still no long-term plan for Gaza. He said any plan would have to address Israel’s security needs.
“We can come up with any mechanism we think is appropriate, but Hamas will not be part of it,” he told reporters. “We need to replace the Hamas regime and ensure security superiority for us.”
Here’s a look at what a lingering Israeli security role might look like and the opposition it would inevitably generate.
OUTRIGHT OCCUPATION
In the 1967 Mideast war, Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Israel annexed east Jerusalem, home to the Old City and its sensitive religious sites — a move not recognized by the international community — and considers the entire city its capital.
The military directly governed the West Bank and Gaza for decades, denying basic rights to millions of Palestinians. Soldiers staffed checkpoints and carried out regular arrest raids targeting militants and other Palestinians opposed to Israeli rule.
Israel also built Jewish settlements in all three areas. Palestinians and most of the international community consider these settlements illegal.
After two decades of outright military rule, Palestinians rose up in the first intifada, or uprising, in the late 1980s. That was also when Hamas first emerged as a political movement with an armed wing, challenging the secular Palestine Liberation Organization’s leadership of the national struggle.
THE WEST BANK MODEL
Interim peace deals in the mid-1990s known as the Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority as an autonomy government in the West Bank and Gaza meant to lead the way toward an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Several peace initiatives by a string of American presidents failed. The Palestinian Authority lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007.
That has left the Palestinian Authority in charge of roughly 40 percent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Its powers are largely administrative, though it maintains a police force. Israel wields overall security control.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is deeply unpopular, in large part because his forces cooperate with Israel on security even as Palestinian hopes for statehood have all but disappeared. Many Palestinians view the PA as the subcontractor of a never-ending occupation.
Israel keeps tens of thousands of soldiers deployed across the West Bank. They provide security for more than 500,000 Jewish settlers and carry out nightly arrest raids, often sparking deadly gunbattles with militants.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested the Palestinian Authority could return to Gaza after the war. That could further unravel Abbas’ legitimacy among his own people, unless it were linked to concrete steps toward Palestinian statehood.
Arab leaders, even those closely tied to Israel, will likely face similar backlash if they step in to help it control Gaza.
THE GAZA MODEL
What about an over-the-horizon presence, with moderate Palestinians maintaining security inside Gaza and with Israel intervening only when it deems absolutely necessary?
That’s been tried as well.
In 2005, in the wake of a second and far more violent intifada, Israel withdrew soldiers and over 8,000 settlers from Gaza. The PA administered the territory, but Israel continued to control its airspace, coastline and all but one border crossing.
Hamas won Palestinian elections the next year, leading to an international boycott and a severe financial crisis. Months of unrest boiled over in June 2007, when Hamas drove out forces loyal to Abbas in a week of street battles.
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza, severely restricting trade and travel in what Israel said was an effort to contain Hamas. Palestinians and rights groups considered it a form of collective punishment. It caused widespread misery among the enclave’s 2.3 million residents.
Israel, like most Western countries, considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas has never recognized Israel’s existence and is committed to its destruction through armed struggle.
But over 16 years that saw four wars, the two entered into various undeclared cease-fires in which Israel eased the blockade in return for Hamas halting rocket attacks and reining in more radical armed groups.
For Israel, the arrangement was far from ideal but preferable to other options and bought yearslong periods of relative calm.
THE LEBANON MODEL
In 1978 and then again in 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in a battle against Palestinian militants.
That led to an 18-year occupation enforced through local ally the South Lebanon Army, which received arms and training from Israel.
In 1982, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was founded with Iranian backing with the objective of pushing Israeli forces out of the country. It carried out attacks on both the SLA and Israeli troops, eventually leading to Israel’s withdrawal in 2000.
The SLA quickly collapsed, creating a vacuum that was filled by Hezbollah. In 2006, the group battled Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war.
Today, Hezbollah is the most powerful force in Lebanon. With an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles, it’s considered a major threat by Israel.
ANOTHER WAY?
Israel has sent mixed messages about evolving plans for Gaza.
Leaders say they don’t want to reoccupy Gaza. They also say troops need freedom to operate inside Gaza long after heavy fighting subsides.
“On the question of the operation’s length — there are no limitations,” Gantz said Wednesday.
That could mean leaving troops stationed inside the territory or along the border.
Some officials have discussed a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the border. Others, including the US, have called for the Palestinian Authority’s return.
In another twist, Gantz suggested any future arrangement for Gaza be contingent on calming Israel’s northern front with Hezbollah and the West Bank, where troops regularly battle Palestinian militants.
“Once the Gaza area is safe, and the northern area will be safe, and the Judea and Samaria region will calm down – we will settle down and review an alternative mechanism for Gaza,” said Gantz, using the biblical term for the West Bank. “I do not know what it will be.”
Israel says it will maintain ‘overall security responsibility’ for Gaza. What might that look like?
https://arab.news/whzrk
Israel says it will maintain ‘overall security responsibility’ for Gaza. What might that look like?
- Even if Israel succeeds in ending Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza and dismantling much of its militant infrastructure, the presence of Israeli forces is likely to fuel an insurgency, as it did from 1967 to 2005
Red Cross concerned by drone attacks on critical infrastructure in Sudan
- Some 70 percent to 80 percent of hospitals in Sudan were not running and there were concerns cholera could surge
Some 70 percent to 80 percent of hospitals in Sudan were not running and there were concerns cholera could surge due to damage caused by the war to water infrastructure, the International Committee of the Red Cross told reporters in Geneva.
“A recent drone attack stopped all the electricity provision in an area close to Khartoum, which means critical infrastructure is being damaged,” said Patrick Youssef, the Red Cross’s Regional Director for Africa, in a new report.
“There is a clear increased use of these technologies, drones – to be in the hands of everyone – which increases the impact on the local population and the intensity of attacks,” Youssef said.
After two years of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, some people are returning to Khartoum after they were forced to flee when war broke out on April 15, 2023 amidst an ongoing power struggle between the army and the RSF ahead of a transition to civilian rule.
Some 12 million people have been displaced by the conflict since 2023.
“We have seen violations of the law left, right and center,” Youssef said, urging the warring parties to allow the Red Cross access so it can offer humanitarian support and document atrocities.
In March, aid groups said that the RSF had placed new constraints on aid deliveries to territories where it was seeking to cement its control. Aid groups have also accused the army of denying or hindering access to RSF-controlled areas.
Both sides in the conflict deny impeding aid.
Israeli minister says France plan to recognize Palestinian state ‘prize for terror’
- France plans to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian conflic
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris could recognize a Palestinian state by June, saying it would be a “prize” for terrorism.
“A unilateral recognition of a fictional Palestinian state, by any country, in the reality that we all know, will be a prize for terror and a boost for Hamas,” Saar said on X late on Wednesday. “These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer — but the opposite: they only push them further away.”
France plans to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian conflict, President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.
“We must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonizing Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.
In Egypt, Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
US strikes overnight in Yemen kill at least 3 people, Houthis say
- Houthis claim shooting down another American MQ-9 Reaper drone, showing footage of debris supposedly of the fallen UAV
- Footage aired by the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances
DUBAI: Suspected US airstrikes in Yemen overnight into Thursday killed at least three people, while the death toll in an earlier attack rose to 13 dead, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels said. The rebels meanwhile aired footage they said showed the debris left after shooting down yet another American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The 13 killed in strikes Tuesday night around Hodeida’s Al-Hawak district made it one of the deadliest single incidents in the ongoing American campaign, the rebels said. Another 15 people were wounded. The Houthis described the majority of those killed as women and children, without providing a breakdown.
The area is home to the city’s airport, which the rebels have used in the past to target shipping in the Red Sea.
Since its start, the intense campaign of US airstrikes targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters — related to the Israel-Hamas war — has killed over 100 people, according to casualty figures released Wednesday by the Houthis.
Footage aired by the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighborhood, likely part of a wider decapitation campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel leaders.
Early Thursday morning, the Houthis said airstrikes targeting the Al-Sabain District in the south of the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, killed at least three people. The area is home to Al-Sabeen Square and a major mosque that has been a gathering point for months for Houthi demonstrations against the war in the Gaza Strip. Other strikes hit the capital as well.
More airstrikes hit Kamaran Island in the Red Sea, the Houthis said.
The US military’s Central Command, which oversees American military operations, did not acknowledge the strikes. That follows a pattern for the command, which now has authorization from the White House to conduct strikes at will in the campaign that began March 15.
The American military also hasn’t been providing any information on targets hit. The White House has said over 200 strikes have been conducted so far.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking in the Oval Office on Monday during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that America was “not going to relent” in its campaign targeting the Houthis.
Oil shipments targeted as US drone reportedly shot down
On Wednesday, the State Department said the US “will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports.” That likely will further squeeze the rebels, who already have had problems in their territory with bad gasoline destroying vehicle engines.
The Houthis also aired footage of the burning wreckage of what they described as an MQ-9 Reaper drone shot down in Yemen’s Al-Jawaf governorate. One man poked at the debris with a stick as those gathered chanted the Houthis’ slogan: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”
Central Command said it was aware of the report of the shoot down, but declined to answer further.
The Houthis say they shoot down the drones with locally made missiles. The Houthis have surface-to-air missiles — such as the Iranian missile known as the 358 — capable of downing aircraft.
Iran denies arming the rebels, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in sea shipments heading to Yemen for the Shiite Houthi rebels despite a United Nations arms embargo.
General Atomics Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes over 40,000 feet (12,100 meters) and remain in the air for over 30 hours. They have been flown by both the US military and the CIA for years over Afghanistan, Iraq and now Yemen.
The Houthis claim they’ve shot down 22 MQ-9s over the country over the years, with 18 downed during the rebels’ campaign over the Israel-Hamas war.
The US military hasn’t acknowledged the total number of drones it has lost there.
US airstrikes under Trump more intense than those under Biden
An AP review has found the new US operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump appears more extensive than that under former President Joe Biden, as Washington moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel and dropping bombs on cities.
The new campaign of airstrikes started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning many vessels could be targeted.
The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.
The US campaign shows no signs of stopping, as the Trump administration has linked its airstrikes on the Houthis to an effort to pressure Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program as well.
What really happened to the Palestinian rescue workers killed in Gaza on March 23?
- Israeli troops killed 15 medics in the deadliest attack on Red Cross and Red Crescent staff in eight years
- Officials claim the rescuers were mistaken for terrorists, but UN agencies want an independent investigation
LONDON: Autopsies on 15 Palestinian emergency workers who were killed in Gaza on March 23 revealed they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. On Monday, the organization called for an international investigation into the incident.
The workers had set out in ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle on a rescue mission in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip — only to be discovered buried with their vehicles in what the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, described as a “mass grave.”
As the day drew to a close, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported losing contact with its team, which had been dispatched to Rafah’s Al-Hashashin neighborhood to evacuate casualties wounded by an earlier Israeli bombardment.
In a subsequent post on X, the organization said Israeli forces were attacking their ambulances and that several emergency medical technicians had been injured during the operation.
By March 25, two days after their disappearance, the organization said in a statement that nine of its ambulance crew members were still missing “after they were besieged and targeted by Israeli occupation forces in Rafah.”
Similarly, Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that displaced Palestinians sheltering in Tal Al-Sultan — a neighborhood under heavy Israeli bombardment — were struck, and a rescue team sent to assist them was “surrounded by Israeli troops.”
Efforts to secure access for rescue teams through international organizations were reportedly blocked by Israeli authorities. Nearly a week later, on March 30, international teams gained access to the site and uncovered evidence of direct attacks on humanitarian workers.
The bodies of all 15 medics and emergency responders were found buried in what appeared to be a mass grave, the AP news agency reported. Their vehicles — clearly marked as ambulances, a fire truck and a UN car — were found mangled and half-buried, apparently by Israeli military equipment.
The victims included eight Red Crescent workers, six members of Gaza’s Civil Defense emergency unit and a staffer from the UN Relief and Works Agency. Ambulance officer Assad Al-Nassasra remains missing.
OCHA said in a statement that all but one body was recovered on March 30; one Civil Defense member’s body was retrieved earlier on March 27 during attempts to access the area.
The UN agency also stated that “available information indicates that the first team was killed by Israeli forces on 23 March.”
It further noted that additional emergency teams dispatched to rescue their colleagues were also “struck one after another over several hours.” All operations, according to the Civil Defense, took place during daylight hours.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, said Israeli soldiers “handcuffed” the victims’ bodies and “decapitated one of them before executing them, marking a dangerous escalation of crimes against civilians and relief teams.”
Jonathan Whittall, OCHA’s head of office for the Occupied Territories, wrote on X. (X: @_jwhittall)
He added: “The occupation directly executed Palestinian Red Crescent and Civil Defense teams and desecrated the bodies of humanitarian workers before burying them in mass graves.”
The Red Crescent said the workers and their vehicles were clearly marked with medical and humanitarian insignia. The organization accused Israeli forces of killing them “in cold blood.”
Initially, Israel defended its actions by claiming its troops opened fire because the convoy approached “suspiciously” at night without identification or headlights. It also claimed that nine members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were killed in the incident but provided no evidence.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar reiterated these claims during a press conference, claiming the Israeli Defense Forces “did not randomly attack an ambulance” but rather identified “several uncoordinated vehicles” advancing “suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals.”
“IDF troops then opened fire at the suspected vehicles,” he said, adding that “following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military terrorist, Mohammed Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”
An Israeli military official, briefing journalists over the weekend on condition of anonymity, said troops first fired at a vehicle carrying members of Hamas internal security forces, killing two and detaining another.
Two hours later, at 6 a.m. on March 23, the soldiers “received a report from the aerial coverage that there is a convoy moving in the dark in a suspicious way towards them” and “opened fire from far.”
“They thought they had an encounter with terrorists,” said the official.
On Monday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said six Hamas militants were among the 15 killed. “What were Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he said.
However, the narrative unraveled after mobile phone footage emerged debunking Israel’s account. A video filmed by Rifaat Radwan, a paramedic killed in the attack, showed the vehicles had their lights on and were clearly marked.
Originally shared by the New York Times, the mobile video begins inside a moving vehicle, capturing a red fire truck and ambulances driving in the dark. Both vehicles and paramedics were clearly marked as humanitarian, and the paramedics wore reflective hi-vis uniforms.
As Radwan and his colleagues arrive and exit their vehicles, a barrage of gunfire erupts without warning and lasts around five minutes. The medic is heard reciting the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith traditionally spoken when death is near.
The 18-minute video also captured Radwan’s final words: “Mom, forgive me. This is the path I chose. I wanted to help people.” Moments later, voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching the vehicles.”
Following this revelation, Israel admitted its earlier account was inaccurate and attributed it to errors made by troops involved in the incident.
An IDF official stated during an April 5 press conference that soldiers buried the bodies “to protect them from wild animals” and moved vehicles to clear roads but denied allegations of close-range executions or handcuffing.
Trey Yingst, chief foreign correspondent at the New York Times, said he spoke with the IDF multiple times about the incident and was told “several vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights, or emergency signals.”
Sharing Radwan’s footage on X, he added: “That is clearly not true.”
Likewise, Munther Abed, a surviving paramedic who bore witness to his colleagues’ fate, told the BBC the ambulances had their lights on and denied his colleagues were linked with any militant group.
The IDF promised a “thorough examination” of the incident, saying it wanted to “understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation.”
The footage has drawn widespread condemnation from international observers. UN human rights chief Volker Turk called for an independent investigation into what he described as apparently systematic killings of emergency workers.
“The subsequent discovery of their bodies eight days later in Rafah, buried near their clearly marked destroyed vehicles, is deeply disturbing,” he said in a statement on April 1. “This raises significant questions with regard to the conduct of the Israeli army during and in the aftermath of the incident.”
Stressing that medical personnel must be protected under international humanitarian law, Turk highlighted significant concerns about Israel’s conduct during and after the incident.
He also noted that the incident took place at a moment when “tens of thousands of Palestinians need help while they are reportedly trapped in Tal Al-Sultan, Rafah, with the entire governorate under a displacement order.”
Likewise, the Palestine Red Crescent and Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies in the EU, called for an urgent investigation into the incident.
Germany’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Christian Wagner, said on Monday: “There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now. An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed.”
Whether or not a thorough probe is carried out is “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state,” he added.
Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir has ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after an initial probe was completed by the military.
“The chief of staff has instructed a deeper investigation to be conducted and completed in the coming days,” the military said in a statement.
“The preliminary inquiry indicated that the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area.”
The March 23 incident was not the first time Israel is alleged to have targeted humanitarian or emergency workers, but the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies described this latest attack as the deadliest on its personnel in eight years.
Since the Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel in 2023, the IDF is reported to have killed more than 100 Civil Defense workers, more than 1,000 health workers, and at least 408 aid workers, including more than 280 UNRWA staff, according to UN figures.
The latest uptick in violence prompted the heads of six UN agencies on Monday to call for an immediate renewal of the ceasefire, which Israel unilaterally broke, and the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza, blocked since March 2.
On March 18, Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza, shattering the fragile ceasefire that had been in place since January. Since then, at least 1,200 Palestinians have been killed in the war-torn enclave, according to local health authorities.
James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, condemned what he described as “unprecedented breaches” of international humanitarian law linked to the resumption of Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza.
Echoing these concerns, IFRC spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa warned that hospitals “are literally overwhelmed” and running out of medicine and medical equipment. A lack of fuel and damage to infrastructure have knocked “more than half” of the Palestine Red Crescent’s ambulance teams out of action, he added.
The IDF began operations in Gaza in retaliation for the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which left 1,200 people dead, the majority of them civilians, and saw 240 taken hostage, many of them non-Israelis.
Since then, Israel’s military operations against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in the enclave have killed at least 50,800 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, according to local health officials.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Warrants were also issued for several Hamas officials, who have since been killed in Israeli strikes.
Separately, Israel faces a case at the International Court of Justice, accused of committing genocide, a claim that Israeli officials and their US allies have rejected.
Bombed-out Gaza university becomes refuge for displaced
- The families say they took shelter in the university because the UN schools-turned-shelters are already overwhelmed
- More than 400,000 Palestinians across Gaza have been displaced by Israeli evacuation orders since it resumed its campaign
The main auditorium of the Islamic University of Gaza is a gutted, burned-out wreck. Giant holes have been blasted through its blackened walls. The banks of seats are mangled and twisted.
And now the stage, once the scene of joyous graduation ceremonies, is crowded with the tents of the displaced. The campus has become a refuge for hundreds of families in northern Gaza since Israel broke a ceasefire in March and relaunched the war.
The families say they took shelter in the university because the UN schools-turned-shelters are already overwhelmed. More than 400,000 Palestinians across Gaza have been displaced by Israeli evacuation orders since it resumed its campaign, according to the UN Most have already been displaced multiple times during the war.
Like all of Gaza’s 17 universities and colleges, the Islamic University has been decimated by Israeli bombardment and ground offensives over the past 18 months. Palestinians and several international academic groups have condemned it as “scholasticide,” the systematic destruction of the territory’s educational system.
Any sense that this was once a university is gone.
Families have set up tents in lecture halls and classrooms. They take books from the library and burn them in cooking fires because they have no fuel. Kids run around in gardens reduced to fields of debris and mounds of earth.
Manal Zaanin, a mother of six, has converted a filing cabinet into a makeshift oven to bake pita bread, which she sells to other families. Her children and other relatives lay out the dough on mattresses in one of the classrooms.
Families pool their resources to buy fuel for tractors to bring in large containers of water. A makeshift market has been set up under the archway of the main gate.
Their struggle to survive has worsened because Israel has cut off the entry of food, fuel, medicine and all other goods into Gaza for more than a month, straining the limited supplies of aid agencies on which nearly the entire population relies.
One of the territory’s largest, the Islamic University of Gaza had some 17,000 students before the war, studying everything from medicine and chemistry to literature and commerce. More than 60 percent of its students were women.
The campus has been pummeled by airstrikes and raids by Israeli ground troops. Strikes have killed at least 10 of its professors and deans, including the university president; prominent physicist Sufian Tayeh, who was killed along with his family when their home was bombed; and one of its best known professors, Refaat Alareer, an English teacher who organized workshops for young writers from Gaza.
At Israa University, troops blew up the main buildings in a controlled detonation, leveling them to the ground in January 2024. No campuses are functioning in the territory, though some universities, including the Islamic University of Gaza, conduct limited online courses.
