Israel has destroyed or damaged 80% of schools in Gaza. This is scholasticide | Chandni Desai

The attack on Palestinian education, educators and cultural knowledge isn't new, but it has reached horrifying new levels

As Palestinians were commemorating the 76th anniversary of their ongoing forced dispossession and expulsion from their native lands, known in Arabic as the Nakba, Israeli forces bombed six United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) schools in Jabalia in northern Gaza, burned one in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and destroyed three schools and burned another in the Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City.

That was just the week of 15 May. According to the UN, 80% of schools have been destroyed or damaged in Gaza since 7 October 2023. This amounts to scholasticide, with the systematic destruction of Palestinian education ongoing since the Nakba. In the latest war, outlined by the international court of justice (ICJ) as plausibly genocidal, scholasticide has shifted from systematic destruction to total annihilation of education.

Chandni Desai is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who teaches in the critical studies in equity and solidarity program