by INGRID CHAHINE
The Israeli occupation army set a precedent on Thursday as it struck the Lebanese University’s Hadath campus, killing Dr. Hussein Bazzi, director of the Faculty of Sciences, and professor Mortada Srour, while injuring at least thirteen others who were in the faculty’s courtyard. Previous Israeli operations in Lebanon have targeted residential areas, medical personnel, and civilian infrastructure, but this is the first confirmed strike on academics inside university grounds during the ongoing war, following the killing of Mr. Mohammad Reda Fadlallah, director of USAL University in Haret Hreik.
Condemnations quickly followed. Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported statements from colleagues, faculty associations, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, the Ministry of Education, and the Lebanese University administration, mourning martyrs Bazzi and Srour and thanking them for their remarkable contribution to science. There was no official statement, however, highlighting that the Israeli strike damaged a university already suffering from chronic underfunding, or rather systematic institutional weakening.
Parallel to these official responses, a coordinated strategy unfolded on social media, where users circulated a photograph claiming to show Dr. Hussein Bazzi standing alongside martyred Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil. The image was first published by Avichai Adraei, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli occupation army. Shortly after, the Lebanese University’s presidency issued a statement addressing the photograph, explaining that the claim that the person in the photo is the martyr Dr. Hussein Bazzi is incorrect. The statement noted that the image originated from enemy sources and that the identification remained unconfirmed speculation.
The occupation framed the targeting of academic and civilian infrastructure as an expanding campaign to “pressure the Lebanese government” who is reportedly “unable to disarm Hezbollah”.
Still, the bombing of academic institutions and the killing of faculty members, theorists, professors and students, follows a pattern established long before the recent zionist genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in 2023. The [ongoing] genocide, however, consolidated it further during that period, particularly with the level of impunity exhibited by the occupation and the international community vis-à-vis live streamed violations of all laws and morals. According to a January 2024 article by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has killed more than 94 university professors in Gaza since October 2023 along with teachers, and thousands of students. That figure has since increased of course, particularly when IOF attacks on the Strip deliberately continued to target academic, scientific, and intellectual figures as well as institutions. Before their demolition, some universities and schools were also converted to detention facilities and military barracks according to the article.
The Georgetown Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine documented the Palestinian scholars who were killed by Israel during the recent genocide. Martyrs were presidents of universities like Professor Sufian Tayeh, who was a renowned physicist and president of the Islamic University of Gaza and Dr. Said Al-Zubda, president of the University College of applied Sciences in Gaza since 2021, and Director of the Technology Incubator there since 2011. Others were deans, like martyr Dr. Ibrahim Hussein Al-Astal, who has a PhD in Curriculum and Mathematics Teaching Methods and was the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Islamic University of Gaza, and Dr. Abo Absa, Dean of the College of Media and Internet Technology at the University of Palestine. Israel also killed professors like martyr Nesma Abu Shaira and Islam Suleiman Haboush. Professor Abu Shaira was a visual artist and an educator, and a lecturer at the department of Fine Arts at Al Aqsa University, and Professor Haboush was a researcher at the Islamic University of Gaza. She was the author of the book Popular Resistance During the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip. She was also known for her lectures on the history of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in particular. Professor Haboush was killed in Gaza, along with most of her family members, in an Israeli airstrike on October 19, 2023. Among the scholars who also struck public opinion was professor Refaat al-Areer, a prominent Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist. He taught literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and co-founded the organization We Are Not Numbers, which matched experienced authors with young writers in the Strip, promoting the power of storytelling as a means of resistance. On December 6, 2023, Al-Areer was killed along with his brother, sister, and her three children in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza. Al-Areer had previously received death threats from Israeli accounts.
Israel also killed professor Khalil Abu Yahia in the recent genocidal war. He was a writer and researcher in Postcolonial, Literary and Cultural Studies and an English teacher at the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education. Abu Yahia had participated in international events worldwide and had written and co-written various articles, the last one was about climate justice in Palestine. He was also involved in community oral history and the integration of drama into education. On October 30, 2023, Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike, along with his mother, his two brothers, his wife Tasnim, and his two young daughters, Elaf and Rital.
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