Ramallah – Zaytoun News
Birzeit University’s administration condemned the Israeli occupation forces’ invasion into the university campus, in West Bank on Tuesday, while lectures were in session and students were present in classrooms, describing it as an organized criminal attack targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to learn.
In a press statement, the university administration explained that occupation forces smashed the university’s main gate and fired live ammunition, sound bombs, and toxic gas intensively and directly at students and members of the university community, resulting in a number of injuries among students, including injuries caused by live fire.
The administration affirmed that this attack constitutes a blatant and deliberate violation of the sanctity of universities and educational institutions, and a flagrant challenge to international norms and conventions that criminalize attacks on education and guarantee protection for students and staff in academic institutions, foremost among them the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.
It stressed that storming the university campus in broad daylight and turning it into a military zone reflects a systematic policy aimed at intimidating students, undermining their right to education, and targeting Palestinian consciousness. It emphasized that such repressive practices will not deter the university from continuing its academic and national mission.
The university called on international, human rights, and media institutions to assume their moral and legal responsibilities and to take urgent action to expose the ongoing violations against Palestinian higher education, exert pressure to stop them, and hold those responsible accountable. It also held the occupation authorities fully responsible for the safety of students and staff.
The university affirmed that education will remain an act of steadfastness, and that Birzeit University will continue to be a space for knowledge and freedom despite all attempts at repression and aggression.
Eleven Palestinian students , including five with live ammunition, were wounded, while dozens suffered suffocation from tear gas inhalation, during the ongoing Israeli military incursion on Birzeit University.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that the total number of injuries included five students struck by live ammunition, four who suffered from tear gas inhalation, and two who were injured from falling during the raid. All causalities were later transferred to hospital for medical treatment.
Nirdin Al-Mimi, the university’s public relations officer, said that two other students sustained bruises from falling, and several others suffered from tear gas inhalation. She also confirmed that Israeli forces fired live ammunition, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades inside the campus.
Al-Mimi emphasized that approximately 8,000 students were present at the university at the time of the incursion, adding that Israeli soldiers smashed and damaged the university’s main gate, stormed several buildings and faculties, and sized equipment belonging to the student movement.
During the raid, Israeli forces also detained the university’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Assem Khalil.
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education condemned the raid, asserting that these attacks blatantly disregard all international norms and conventions that criminalize the violation of the sanctity of universities and educational institutions in general.
The Ministry emphasized that these violations will not break the will of national institutions, their students, and staff; rather, they will remain committed to the mission of knowledge and learning.
It reiterated its call to the International Association of Universities, the Association of Arab Universities, and all international, human rights, and media organizations to expose and curb these ongoing violations against Palestinian higher education and to take a firm stance against them.
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