Gaza universities targeted during hostilities – UNESCO

Middle East Monitor 30 January 2015

A report by UNESCO has documented the "material, human and educational damage" sustained by Gaza's higher education institutions during Israel's assault last summer. The UN agency's conclusion was that "higher education institutions were directly targeted during the hostilities", writes Ben White for Middle East Monitor.

Israel's "failure to treat learning environments as safe spaces and protect universities from attack", UNESCO states, constituted "a serious violation of the right to education and is prohibited under international law".

The UN agency used primary data, questionnaires and interviews, with researchers conducting field visits to 26 higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed 421 students and injured another 1,128 during so-called ‘Operation Protective Edge’. In what UNESCO calls a "shocking statistic", student deaths represented 27.4% – more than a quarter – of the total civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip. The majority of students killed in the conflict were hit by shelling.
Full report on the Middle East Monitor site

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