[News] Israeli army blows up university in Gaza after 70 days of converting it into a military barracks

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Israeli army blows up university in Gaza after 70 days of converting it
into a military barracks

Thursday 18-January-2024
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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.
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