Before the war, the Islamic University of Gaza was one of the leading public universities in the Palestinian enclave.
Despite the challenges of Israeli air attacks and a siege on Gaza, it worked to provide the best possible academic environment for students.
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Of particular focus were fields relying heavily on practical training, such as medicine, health sciences and engineering. But Israel’s crippling hold on Gaza posed huge challenges in teaching these disciplines.
Still, students spent hours in laboratories, working with medical equipment, handling samples and applying what they had learned theoretically in classrooms to ready themselves for futures in science, medicine and engineering.
All this changed on October ۸, ۲۰۲۳, when Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began. It saw university campuses bombed and a tightening of a siege that restricted the entry of even pens and notebooks.
Yassin al-Nounou, the university’s laboratory coordinator, said equipment to support medical and health sciences had arrived just days before the war began.
It included anatomy models and educational skeletons to strengthen practical training and bring students closer to real workplace environments. These plans came to a halt when the university lost a significant part of its infrastructure, laboratories and equipment when massive Israeli bombing began.
Even the latest “ceasefire”, beginning in October ۲۰۲۵, repeatedly violated by Israel, has brought a new challenge: how to rebuild education for students from rubble?
Days of disaster
As many as ۱۹ educational buildings were destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, while about ۵۰۰ classrooms, ۲۰۰ scientific laboratories and ۷۵ computer laboratories were also severely damaged. The central library lost more than ۲۴۰,۰۰۰ books, journals, references and academic theses.
Abdulraouf Ali al-Manama, dean of the university’s health sciences faculty, describes the past three years as “one of the greatest disasters in the university’s history”.
Israeli bombing destroyed most academic buildings, classrooms, educational and research laboratories, libraries and training clinics. The university lost thousands of scientific devices, laboratory materials, books and resources it had accumulated over the past five decades. What remained was “the ruins of a destroyed university”, al-Manama said.
The mass displacement from Gaza’s towns and cities also saw campus buildings and facilities converted into temporary shelters. Shortages of suitable classrooms, repeated electricity and internet outages, and the psychological and social toll experienced by students and staff have severely affected the university’s ability to teach, he said.
Amid a devastated landscape and roadblocks, students are still struggling to reach the university or training locations, making education a difficult practical journey in itself.
The war also represented the loss of an integrated educational environment to provide students, particularly in medicine and sciences, with the professional skills needed to help Gaza function.
An assessment by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, in cooperation with UNESCO, showed that most higher education institutions in Gaza sustained significant damage since ۲۰۲۳. Hundreds of specialised laboratories and facilities have lost their ability to operate.
The use of laboratories, medical equipment, handling samples, conducting tests and analysing results is what connects students’ theoretical knowledge to real-life cases.
Destruction of these facilities means that many courses reliant on practical training can now only be taught theoretically.
One alternative has been to use digital simulations and recorded experiments in teaching medical microbiology, biochemistry, haematology, molecular diagnostics, medical optics laboratories, and physical therapy training.
These solutions provide a temporary fix to the problem. But al-Manama said they cannot replace real laboratories that are essential to help students gain practical skills and the confidence needed to practise what they have learned.
Between the classroom and hospital
Deema Muhaisen, a medical student, has seen her education transform dramatically since the university laboratories were destroyed. She says before the war, she would spend hours in the laboratory developing the skills needed to become a doctor.
Since the destruction of the medicine faculty on December ۹, ۲۰۲۳, she no longer has a fixed place to study, and much of her learning has now shifted to hospitals and healthcare settings.
“In many cases, we received lectures in hospital corners and between patient rooms, gathered around doctors, in places that did not provide the minimum requirements for an educational environment,” she said.
“The thing I missed the most was regular clinical interaction with patients under academic supervision, because this experience is the foundation for building a medical student’s skills and confidence.”
But the priority for the doctors, who effectively became Muhaisen’s teachers, was treating injured patients. There was also limited space in overcrowded hospitals for training students.
Muhaisen tried to compensate for this by helping doctors in hospitals to gain some practical experience. For two years, she volunteered in emergency departments, wound care units and surgery departments at several hospitals across northern and southern Gaza, beginning with simple tasks, but developing into greater responsibilities as the need for medical staff increased.
“I began assisting in operating rooms, following up with many patients after surgeries, and responding to their needs and concerns,” she said. “This gave me deep practical experience and strengthened my sense of responsibility.”
Yassin al-Nounou, the university’s laboratory coordinator, says besides the loss of the equipment, there is also a gap between students’ theoretical knowledge and practical experience via laboratories and learning to use medical equipment in a classroom setting.
“Students used to study the device, understand its details, how it operates, and how to use it, so they would be able to work with it when entering the job market,” he said. “Today, there is no equipment and no laboratory like the ones that existed before.”
The university was forced to rely on theoretical explanations, videos, and recorded experiments to deliver this information to students.
“During this period, students began to feel anxious because they asked: ‘How will we work with something we have never seen in reality? How will we handle a device we have never stood in front of or used with our own hands?’” al-Nounou said.
To reduce this gap, the university coordinates with healthcare centres, hospitals and local institutions so students can combine the theoretical and practical aspects of their studies in a real-life setting.
Reintroducing teaching
Despite the scale of destruction to its faculties, the Islamic University is still looking for ways to gradually resume in-person lectures when the situation allows.
Al-Nounou, the lab coordinator, says the destruction of the main campus is an obvious obstacle to reintroducing in-person lectures.
There are few buildings available on the campus for teaching, and many of the standing structures are still being used as shelters for displaced Palestinians.
To respond to this, the university has established five branches and educational facilities across different parts of the Gaza Strip. This should make it easier for students, scattered across Gaza, to continue their studies by reducing the need to travel to the main campus amid dangers on the road and other travel restrictions.
The university has also relied heavily on online education, virtual simulations, recorded practical experiments, restructured academic plans and expanded opportunities for field training at hospitals, healthcare centres and local institutions.
According to al-Manama, the dean, these measures can only be a temporary solution to the problem, as they still lack fully equipped laboratories that students need to develop their practical skills.
Rebuilding the university means not just repairing damaged buildings but a complete reconstruction of the entire educational system that includes laboratories, equipment and training materials.
The university also needs new laboratory analysis equipment, microscopes, incubators, sterilisation devices, measurement and analysis tools, as well as specialised computers, chemicals and laboratory reagents.
Israel’s siege on Gaza and the difficulty in accessing medical equipment, construction materials and spare parts is a big challenge in bringing it back to life. Due to this, planning is still at a theoretical stage and reliant on accessing the necessary funds and importing equipment needed to restart teaching.
Still, the university has not surrendered its vision of providing students in Gaza with the best possible education. The university graduates will also be an essential part of the workforce needed to help Gaza recover and rebuild after nearly three years of genocidal war.
Muhaisen, the medical student, was able to compensate for some of the practical training missed during the war at hospitals, emergency departments, and surgical units. This field experience has strengthened her understanding of the responsibilities and duties of being a doctor, despite the lack of laboratory and practical learning experiences most medical students already have before entering the workplace.
Her resilience and the university’s efforts in continuing students’ education in the face of such challenges reflect a combined will to protect the future generation of doctors and professionals.
Rebuilding Gaza will begin not only with the building blocks needed to reconstruct the university’s facilities but also in preserving people’s ability to fix what was destroyed.
“Investing in education today is an investment in recovery, because rebuilding people is no less important than rebuilding stones,” Muhaisen said.
