Birzeit University Right To Education Campaign Studies & Research R2E FACT SHEET: GAZA Right to Education Campaign, Birzeit University, 15 June 2009 * 2 years of siege on Gaza: Closure by numbers, June 2007 to June 2009 http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1529&intSiteSN=113 ATTACK ON GAZA: DECEMBER 2008 - JANUARY 2009 On the 27th of December, 2008, Israel launched a mass military attack against Gaza, code-named "Operation Cast Lead". The operation lasted 22 days, and according to Al-Mezan, 1268 Palestinians were killed, at least 280 of which were children. More than 5300 Palestinians were wounded, at least 1606 of which were children. The Ministry of Education was hit twice by direct hits from the air and a number of educational institutions were also been hit. According to a statement released by Al Mezan Center on the 14th of January 2008, 66 schools were destroyed or damaged throughout the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army thus far. Of those 7 schools were directly targeted and 33 schools are UNRWA schools. Below is a summary of some of the attacks on educational institutions: 27/12/08: An air missile hit the Gaza Training College in downtown Gaza city: 8 students were killed and 19 were wounded. 27/12/09: The Khalil al Nubani school was attacked from the air and subsequently gutted by fire. The entire student body has been transferred elsewhere while reconstruction efforts are launched. 27/12/08: The Gaza Music School which was located in the Palestinian Red Crescent Society building in Gaza City was destroyed along with the entire building when the Preventive Security Forces compound opposite it was destroyed by the first wave of Israeli bombardments. The School was established by the Qattan Foundation, with co-funding from the Swedish development organization SIDA. 29/12/08: The Islamic University of Gaza was bombed, destroying 2 five-story buildings - the science lab building and the engineering lab building. The library and other buildings nearby were damaged. Israel has still produced no evidence of their claim that the science lab was used as a 'research and development center for Hamas weapons'. 3/1/09: Israeli jets level the American school in Gaza, killing its security guard and denying 200 students their right to education. 3/1/09: The Israeli military fired 4 artillery shells near the Agricultural School in Beit Hanoun, damaging the school's building and injuring 3 passersby. 5/1/09: Israeli aircrafts fired 15 missiles around the Omar Ibn Al Khattab School in Beit Lahia. 6/1/09: Israeli missiles hit 2 UNRWA school buildings which are now being used to shelter Gazans who have fled their homes in response to Israeli army leaflets telling them to flee or die in the rubble of the impending bombardment. According to DCI-Palestine 42 people died, including 14 children, when three Israeli artillery shells landed at the perimeter of Al-Fakhoura school in Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The school, run by UNRWA had stopped functioning since the beginning of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, but was being used as a refuge by 350 civilians. According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the locations of all UN facilities have been communicated to the Israeli authorities and are known to the Israeli army. UNRWA spokesman Chris Guinness told Haaretz on January 8th 2009 that the army had conceded wrongdoing: "In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school," Guinness said. "The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional." 11/1/09 - It is reported that over 25,000 Palestinians are seeking refuge from the bombing in UN Schools. 12/1/09 - At around 3.28pm Israeli planes shelled the agricultural area north of Al-Shaima School in Beit Lahia, causing damages to the school and some nearby houses. At 11.30pm the Israeli army fired artillery shells at the area of Beer al-Naja in western Jabaliya, one of which landed inside Shadia Abu Ghazala School, which has been being used as a shelter for UNRWA. 16/1/09 - The headquarters of the University Teachers Association-Palestine, in Gaza was bombed by the Israeli army during their destruction campaign in the Tal el-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City, leaving the building without a roof and in danger of collapsing at any time. At approximately 8.30pm on the same day Israeli helicopter gunships opened fire at the Mashrou neighbourhood in Beit Lahia, hitting houses and the yard of UNRWA's Beit Lahia boys' school, which shelters displaced civilians. As a result, a girl child, 13-year-old Falastin Tanboura, was severely injured. Her leg was amputated at hospital later. 17/1/09 - According to Al-Mezan, at 6:30am, IOF fired a shell - believed to be white phosphorus - which landed in the UNRWA Beit Lahia Boys School, which shelters civilians. As the refugees tried to evacuate the school, an artillery shell struck a classroom, where civilians are being sheltered. The shell broke through the roof and exploded on the ground, spreading its shrapnel into classrooms. Two children were killed and their mother, Nujoud Shaban al-Ashqar, was injured. IOF then fired another shell that hit the school and injured 14 refugees, including six children. The refugees escaped from the school and went to the Kamal Udwan Hospital in Beit Lahia seeking safe refuge. Al Mezan's field worker reported that UNRWA responded quickly and opened another school for them in the al-Nazla area in Jabaliya. Some refugees, however, returned to the same school, which sheltered 320 families (1,853 people). * On the 24th of January 2009, both public and UNRWA schools re-opened after one month of suspension. Students who used to study at the destroyed schools were distributed to other schools which will operate 2 or 3 shifts - because of the reduced amount of classroom space schools will have to merge 2 or 3 classes together, raising class sizes to 120 in some cases, the Ministry of Education says. * Due to the ongoing siege and Israeli control over which goods can enter and leave the Gaza Strip, it has been difficult to move ahead with rehabiliation and repairs in the Strip: Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told IRIN by telephone at the beginning of February 2009, "Two hundred and twenty-one schools for 200,000 children only have 40 percent of their books because we can't get paper and glue into Gaza." * In June 2009 at a workshop organized by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) Palestinian psychologists warned that 98% of the Palestinian children in Gaza were suffering from psychological trauma and feel unsafe due to the Israeli war on Gaza in December 2008 - January 2009. Damage to property * In June 2006, an F-16 fighter plane bombed the Islamic University in Gaza. Movement restrictions * Since 2004, Israel has totally prohibited Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying in the West Bank. In 2006, a ruling in the Israeli High Court forbade 10 Palestinians from accessing Bethlehem University to study Occupational Therapy. The argument used by the State was that once they were given permits to leave they would become "information carriers". The course provides expertise in rehabilitation and habilitation of the physically and mentally impaired, and is not available at Gazan universities. Meanwhile, there are at least 24,000 registered disabled in Gaza. Israel has also banned Gaza residents accepted to Israeli academic institutions from entering Israel for their studies. Travel abroad is therefore the last remaining option for students wishing to pursue academic studies in the many fields not offered in the Gaza Strip. * After the closing of Rafah crossing in June 2007, 722 Palestinian university students studying abroad were trapped in Gaza - about 30 study in US universities, and 10 in the UK. Another 2,000 students enrolled in foreign schools were also trapped. They are part of the 7,500 Gazans who need permission to continue their work, education or medical treatment outside of Gaza. The human rights organisation, Gisha, states that in September 2007 there were 1,100 university students wanting to leave Gaza to study abroad, of whom 480 were able to leave. However, Israel has not operated trips transporting students from Gaza to Egypt since January 2008. * May 2008: 7 Fulbright Scholarships were to be re-directed due to the Israeli ban on freedom of movement of students. In a last minute u-turn, all 7 applications were reconsidered. U.S. Department of State sent students an email saying: "We are working closely with the government of Israel in order to secure its cooperation in this matter." Three of the students - Zuhair Abu Shaban, Fida Abed and Osama Daoud - were eventually granted permission to attend visa interviews in Jerusalem and on 30 of July the US issued their visas to the US. Two days later, the visas were revoked due to undisclosed "additional information" according to State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos. Eventually, only 4 of the 7 Fullbright Scholars managed to leave Gaza and continue their education. * According to PCHR, approximately 200 of the students managed to leave Gaza when Rafah border crossing was open for 2 days at the end of August 2008. As of September 2008 approximately 400 students remain trapped and therefore at risk of losing their university places. Trauma * Queen's University, Belfast, produced a report stating that 98% of children in Gaza suffer from psychological trauma, serious and debilitating psychiatric and psychological effects. The study, published in Aug 2006, claims there is a pattern of violence against Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip that has serious and debilitating psychiatric and psychological effects. * The head of UNRWA in Gaza, John Ging, stated that "Among other things, the cumulative impact of years of violence and closures, of disrupted schooling and endemic poverty is clear from the stark exam results of Gaza's schoolchildren." (The Independent, 6 Oct 2007) Economic Resources * Nearly 78% of the population live below the poverty line, resulting in many poor families alternating which children they send to school so they can share the same uniform. * In September 2007, UNRWA revealed that 30% of their students were without textbooks as the Israeli army prevented them from entering Gaza. UNRWA accounts for 200,000 students in Gaza, about half the total number of school children in the Strip. * The ban was extended to all raw materials such as paper, ink, and binding materials and exacerbated the shortage, particularly as PA-run public schools textbooks are printed in Gaza after they replaced the Egyptian curriculum with their own in 2006. The Palestinian Education ministry said 27% of government school textbooks had not been printed by September 2007. Government schools take care of half the total number of school children in the Gaza Strip. * Since April 9th, 2008, the Israeli blockade on fuel supply to the Gaza strip has paralysed 50% of the educational sector, as half the students at all levels of education are unable to reach their schools and universities. * October 2008: Palestinian Legislative Council member, Jamal Al Khudari, announced that the Israeli siege has cost Gaza universities 50 million dollars in development projects due to their inability to import raw materials for construction, mostly affecting medical and technological facilities. He also stressed the inability to properly run universities and schools without adequate electricity, water or heating during the winter months. General conditions in Gaza 1. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights describes the daily conditions in Gaza as 'security chaos'. 2. Despite the removal of settlements in 2005, Israel controls the borders and people register of Gaza. 3. Gaza is home to over 1.4m people, 400,000 of whom are aged between 18-30. Its three standardized universities are able to accommodate just 70,000 students, most of whom are women. There is also an Open University in Gaza which caters for about 15-20,000 students. However, this still leaves over 75% of university-age Gazans without access to higher education. Situation for Gazans at Birzeit University 1. In 2000, there were around 350 students from Gaza in Birzeit University. In 2005 there were 35 (the numbers dropped 10 times in 5 yrs). 2. Israeli law requires Gazans to have a special permit to study in the West Bank and since 2000, the Israeli army has obstructed the issuing of such permits. By 2002, no new permits were issued. 3. Most Gazans who came to Birzeit/Ramallah area to study are now trapped there. They live in constant fear and cannot move freely in their own country. 4. Between 2001-2003, there was Surda checkpoint cutting-off Birzeit from Ramallah, Gaza students were stuck in Birzeit. 5. Now there are flying checkpoints, especially at Surda during exam times, so Gaza students still live in fear of traveling outside Birzeit. 6. In 2004, Israeli soldiers arrested 4 Gazans who studied at Birzeit University and deported them to Gaza. They were in the last semester of their degrees. 7. None of the students deported to Gaza were accused of any acts against Israel. 8. Birzeit University now has less than 15 students from Gaza, all of whom are returning students who were already residing 'illegally' in the West Bank. 9. Since 2004, there has been ZERO intake of new students from Gaza.