GAZA, (PIC)
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) blew up the building of Al-Isra University in Gaza after 70 days of occupying it and converting it into a military barracks and a detention center.
The university administration said in a statement on Thursday, “The IOF occupied the university building for seventy days, turning it into a military base and a center for sniping isolated civilians in the areas of Rashid Street, Al-Mughraqa, and Al-Zahra, as well as a temporary detention center for interrogating Palestinians, before detonating it.”
Israeli media outlets published a video documenting the moment the occupation forces detonated the main headquarters of Al-Isra University in the city of Al-Zahra, south of Gaza City, yesterday.
The university administration condemned, “The barbaric aggression that targeted the capabilities of students of knowledge, the latest of which was the destruction of the building of graduate studies and the main bachelor’s colleges in the south of Gaza City.”
It said, “The aggression was not limited to the main building only, but also affected the national museum, which Al-Isra University has always been proud to establish as a national museum licensed by the Ministry of Antiquities, the first of its kind in the country, containing more than three thousand rare artifacts.”
The statement pointed out that the IOF soldiers and officers looted the rare artifacts before demolishing the museum building to cover up the traces of their crime.
It pointed out that the IOF destroyed the buildings of the first and only university hospital in the Gaza Strip and the second in Palestine, as well as the medical and engineering laboratories, nursing laboratories, media training studio, the special court hall of the Faculty of Law, and the graduation halls, after looting their valuable contents that students have always used in various faculties to enrich their scientific research and carry out their activities.
It continued, “The cafeteria building did not escape the aggression, as it was leveled to the ground from the first day, and the Israeli aircraft targeted the main university mosque inside the southern campus and destroyed it.”
The IOF also targeted the university’s other headquarters, including the headquarters of intermediate studies “Diploma” located north of the Gaza Strip and the headquarters of vocational training located in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, which recently turned into two centers for displaced persons.
The university administration, whose capabilities were destroyed, buildings were demolished, and material and cash funds were looted, stated that this was not its main loss. Rather, a group of its students, professors, and employees have “ascended as martyrs on the path of liberating the homeland and achieved the highest ranks of honor with their martyrdom.”
It clarified that the targeting of educational institutions in the Gaza Strip during the current aggression comes within an old and systematic context that has never stopped since the beginning of this conflict. It pointed out that Israel has “tried to generalize a culture of ignorance and exclude the Palestinian people from keeping up with the march of knowledge and civilization, killing scientists and expelling minds and pillars of society outside Palestine.”
The Government Media Office in Gaza said that during the 100 days of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, the IOF destroyed 95 schools and universities completely and 295 schools and universities partially.
