Gaza’s classrooms in ruins as Israeli genocidal war erases a generation of learning

GAZA CITY, Palestine (MNTV) — More than 20,000 students and 1,000 teachers and other education workers have been killed while hundreds of schools and university buildings have been destroyed or severely damaged in Gaza since Israeli genocidal war began on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Palestinian, and U.N. assessments.

The near total destruction has pushed Gaza’s education system to the brink of complete collapse, disrupting the schooling of hundreds of thousands of children and the higher education of tens of thousands of university students.

Nearly every higher-education campus has been damaged, while universities that once served as centers of teaching, research and intellectual life have been reduced in many cases to concrete shells and twisted metal.

The scale of the devastation has prompted academics and human rights experts to coin terms such as “academicide” and “scholasticide” to describe the destruction of Palestinian educational and intellectual life.

U.N. experts used the term “scholasticide” in April 2024 when they warned that the destruction of Gaza’s educational system was depriving an entire generation of opportunities to learn.

When the classrooms fell silent

When Israel launched its genocidal war against the enclave, Gaza’s schools and universities quickly became inaccessible.

By November 2023, the Palestinian Education Ministry reported that hundreds of higher-education students and university employees had already been killed by Israel and that roughly 88,000 university students had been deprived of their education.

The damage soon extended beyond the loss of access.

Universities, schools and other educational facilities were struck or damaged, while displaced families crowded into school buildings seeking shelter.

Academics targeted

In December 2023, Sufyan Tayeh, a professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics and president of the Islamic University of Gaza, was killed with members of his family in an Israeli strike, according to Reuters.

Tayeh had been appointed to a UNESCO chair in physics, astronomical physics and space sciences in Palestine. His death became one of the most prominent examples of the loss of Gaza’s academic leadership.

Refaat Alareer, a prominent English literature professor, writer and mentor to young Palestinian authors, was also killed in December 2023.

Israeli airstrikes demolish universities

By January 2024, the damage to higher education had become impossible to overlook.

Israa University was demolished that month after Israeli forces had used the site as a military position, according to reports. Al-Azhar University in Gaza had also suffered major damage.

Al Jazeera reported at the time that all of Gaza’s universities had been affected and that dozens of professors had been killed, citing Palestinian human rights organizations.

Palestinian academics increasingly described the destruction as “scholasticide,” emphasizing that the loss went far beyond buildings.

A university is not simply a collection of classrooms. It is a community of students, professors, researchers and administrators, supported by laboratories, libraries, archives, research programs and decades of institutional memory.

Destroying those elements can erase knowledge accumulated over generations.

A system destroyed

By April 2024, the scale of the damage had drawn the attention of U.N. experts.

They said 95 university professors, 261 teachers and thousands of students had been killed. They also reported that more than 60% of educational facilities had been damaged or destroyed and warned of “scholasticide.”

The figures continued to rise.

Reuters reported in May 2024 that all 12 of Gaza’s higher-education institutions had been damaged or destroyed — in relentless and targeted – Israeli airstrikes. About 90,000 university students were affected, while more than 350 teachers and academics had been killed, according to Palestinian officials cited by Reuters.

At the same time, about 625,000 school-age children were unable to attend classes.

The consequences extended beyond lost school days. Students preparing for final secondary-school examinations were unable to sit for them, while younger children missed the beginning of their formal education.

Losing the people who teach

The destruction of buildings is visible. The loss of academics is harder to measure.

A university can theoretically be rebuilt. Replacing a professor who spent decades teaching, conducting research and training younger scholars is far more difficult.

A 2024 analysis by Birzeit University academics reported that more than 450 academic and administrative university staff members had been killed by February of that year. The researchers said the dead included university presidents, deans and professors.

Other counts have produced lower totals because they use narrower definitions, counting professors or university academic staff rather than all education employees.

The differences in methodology help explain why estimates vary, but they point to the same underlying reality: Gaza has lost a substantial part of the academic community that sustained its universities.

Among those killed were scientists, engineers, physicians, psychologists, writers and researchers.

Their loss means more than the deaths of individuals. Students have lost teachers and mentors. Research programs have lost their leaders. Universities have lost institutional memory.

The buildings disappear

The physical damage has grown even more extensive.

A U.N. investigation later documented the destruction or damage of hundreds of school buildings. In February 2025, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry reported that 403 of 564 school buildings had been directly hit by Israeli planes. It said 85 schools had been completely destroyed and 73 had lost at least half of their structures.

The damaged buildings had served more than 435,000 students and more than 16,000 teachers, according to the commission.

The destruction was particularly severe in northern Gaza, where the commission found that all school buildings had been directly hit or damaged.

Higher education suffered a similar fate.

By March 2025, the U.N. Commission reported that more than 57 university buildings had been completely destroyed and that more than 190 university academic staff had been killed in Israeli strikes.

The Associated Press reported in April 2025 that all 17 universities and colleges in Gaza had been affected.

The Islamic University of Gaza, once home to about 17,000 students, had become a landscape of damaged buildings and rubble. AP reported that the university’s main auditorium had been gutted and displaced Palestinians were living in tents on the campus.

Libraries, laboratories and memory

The damage also erased places where knowledge was stored.

University libraries, laboratories, archives and research facilities were destroyed or damaged along with classrooms.

U.N. experts reported damage to 13 public libraries during the first months of Israeli genocidal war on Gaza.

For scholars, the loss of a library or archive can be permanent.

A destroyed classroom can be rebuilt. A destroyed manuscript, research collection or archive may be impossible to replace.

That is why Palestinian academics have argued that the destruction of education represents an attack on the infrastructure of knowledge itself.

A generation without school

The genocidal war’s devastating effects have reached far beyond universities.

By 2024, hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s children had been out of school for months. About 625,000 children had lost access to education, according to humanitarian assessments.

Another 58,000 children who were supposed to begin first grade could not do so.

About 39,000 students were unable to sit for their final secondary-school examinations.

The longer the disruption continues, the greater the educational gap becomes.

For a child who loses one school year, the consequences can be significant. For children who lose several consecutive years, the disruption can have negative effects on their entire adult lives.

The numbers keep rising

Palestinian authorities say the toll has continued to grow.

By June 2026, Palestinian Education Ministry figures cited by WAFA put the number of students killed in Gaza at more than 20,600 and the number of teachers and education workers killed at more than 1,050.

The ministry also reported that more than 179 government schools had been completely destroyed and that more than 63 university buildings had been completely damaged.

A September 2026 update from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported more than 19,000 school students killed in Gaza and more than 1,300 higher-education students killed.

The different figures reflect differences in reporting dates and definitions, but they illustrate the continuing loss.

Can a university be rebuilt?

A UNESCO assessment released in November 2025 offered one of the clearest measurements of the damage to higher education.

It examined 38 university campuses belonging to 21 higher-education institutions and found that 95% had been damaged.

Twenty-two campuses had been completely destroyed, while another 14 had been damaged.

Overall, 195 of 206 university buildings surveyed had been destroyed or severely damaged.

The physical reconstruction bill was estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the cost cannot be measured only in money.

Rebuilding a laboratory does not bring back the scientist who worked there. Replacing a library does not restore every book, archive and research collection that disappeared. Constructing classrooms does not immediately restore an academic community.

For surviving educators, the challenge is already underway. Teachers and university instructors have attempted to continue education in tents and damaged buildings, trying to prevent an entire generation from being permanently cut off from learning.

What remains

The most enduring consequence may not be the ruined buildings but the generation growing up without them.

Gaza’s children have lost classrooms, teachers, examinations and years of formal education. University students have lost campuses, laboratories and opportunities to complete degrees. Academics have lost colleagues, students and research institutions.

And Gaza has lost part of the intellectual infrastructure needed to train its next generation of doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists, writers and researchers.

That is why scholars who prefer the term “academicide” say the issue is not simply whether Gaza’s universities can eventually be reconstructed.

The deeper question is whether the academic community and accumulated knowledge that made those universities function can also be rebuilt.

Concrete can be replaced.

A generation of lost education — and the scholars who would have taught it — cannot.