After Gaza university demolition goes viral, Israeli military says it will review incident

JERUSALEM – After a video of the Israeli military’s demolition of a large university building in the Gaza Strip circulated widely on social media, prompting pushback from US officials and others, the military said on Jan 21 it would review the incident.

The video, which was verified by The New York Times, showed the main building of Israa University being blown up in what appeared to be a controlled demolition.

Satellite imagery by Planet Labs shows that the building was destroyed some time between Jan 10 and 14.

Israa University also posted the video on its Facebook page, where it said the demolished building housed graduate studies and undergraduate colleges.

It said other university buildings had been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the war, including its training hospital, medical and engineering laboratories and cafeteria.

On Jan 21, the Israeli military said both the demolition of the building and the approval process that led to it were “under review”. It said a preliminary investigation indicated that Hamas “used the compound and its surrounding area for military purposes”.

Israa University, near Gaza City, is one of several in the strip that have been devastated during Israel’s campaign against Hamas. Seven universities operate in the region, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week that he had seen the video of the demolition and that it was “something we are raising with the government of Israel, as we often do”.

But he cautioned that the full picture remained unclear.

On Oct 11 – just four days after Hamas’ attack on Israel prompted full-blown war – Israel bombed the Islamic University, Gaza’s oldest university.

The Israeli military said it served as a “Hamas training camp for military intelligence operatives, as well as for the development and production of weapons”.

The Islamic University’s leadership was indeed close to Hamas, and its ideological sentiment aligned with the group’s, said Mr Muhib Abuloha, secretary-general of the Palestinian Higher Education Council.

But that did not justify turning the campus into a military target, he said.

Professor Sofyan Taya, who was the Islamic University’s president and a well-known physics professor, was killed alongside his family members in early December in an Israeli air strike, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education.

The Israeli military did not comment on the strike at the time.

Another university in Gaza, Al-Azhar, was a stronghold of Fatah – a Palestinian political movement that is a rival to Hamas.

Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and works closely with Israel on security.

But that did not spare the Al-Azhar campus from the impact of the war, university officials said.

“The head of the Islamic University was Hamas, the head of Al-Azhar was Fatah – but both universities were targeted,” Mr Abuloha said. The Israelis “didn’t distinguish between them”, he added.

Political science professor Mkhaimar Abusada of Al-Azhar University said one of the institute’s two campuses was heavily damaged. The other was hit during the Israeli strikes on the adjacent Islamic University, he said.

Prof Abusada – who left Gaza for Cairo in November along with his family – is still in touch with university colleagues in a private WhatsApp channel.

But no one is yet talking about going back to school, he said. Instead, they swop condolences over friends and family killed in the fighting.

“In previous wars, we’d return to the university a few days after the ceasefire. But this time is different – everything is in a state of destruction,” Prof Abusada said. “Life will eventually go on. But it’s not going to be easy.” NYTIMES