UN Experts: Israel’s Assaults on Birzeit Attack Education
GENEVA – Israel’s military assault on Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank is not episodic violence but a systematic policy, UN experts* said today.
“Raids, arrests, intimidation, and the criminalisation of student life are tools used to undermine the right to education by attacking Palestinian institutions at their core,” the experts said. “Israel’s collective punishment measures are an extension of decades-old military occupation policies that seek to destroy the education sector.”
They warned that the raid constitutes a dangerous escalation in Israel’s systematic assault on Palestinian higher education and a clear violation of international law.
On 6 January 2026, Israeli soldiers and military vehicles stormed the Birzeit University campus with more than 8000 students present. Israeli forces reportedly smashed the university’s main gate before firing indiscriminately across campus. Students fled for safety as live ammunition, tear gas, and stun grenades were fired. At least 41 people were injured, several by gunfire, with multiple students still hospitalised.
“The recent storming of Birzeit University in broad daylight, during the academic semester, was a militarised assault on a civilian educational institution. The use of live fire during teaching hours cannot be justified as ‘crowd control’ or ‘law enforcement,'” the experts said.
This last assault coincided with a student union protest addressing violence against Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s system of mass political detention. Raids on Palestinian universities have been carried out without any justification, the experts noted.
Birzeit University, one of the most prominent Palestinian institutions in the occupied West Bank, has long been targeted by Israeli forces. The raid on 6 January was the 26th on the university since 2002. Between October 2023 and December 2025, the Israeli military killed 37 university students and injured 259 others in the West Bank. It also detained 463 university students – 148 of whom are from Birzeit University – and 27 higher education staff, most held under administrative detention.
“The purpose is disruption,” they said. “To deny Palestinians any sense of normalcy, and to fracture spaces that nurture critical thought, political consciousness, and collective identity. Universities are targeted precisely because they sustain Palestinian social and national life.”
The assault flagrantly violates the rights to education and international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, they warned.
“Universities are civilian objects. Attacking them and injuring unarmed students breaches the principles of distinction, necessity, and proportionality. Israel is fully aware of these obligations-and acts in defiance of them.”
The experts situated the raid within Israel’s broader policy of scholasticide, a term recognised by the United Nations to describe the systematic destruction of education through attacks on students, educators, and academic infrastructure.
“From the obliteration of every university in Gaza to the daily strangulation of academic life in the West Bank, this is an assault on a people’s past, present, and future,” they said.
“It is unconscionable that States continue to treat as an ally a government that wages war on education and even reward it with academic partnerships,” the experts said. “Education is not a privilege; it is a right. States must act now: ensure accountability, suspend military cooperation, and impose meaningful diplomatic and economic measures to bring Israel back to a path of legality.”
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/01/israels-continuous-assaults-birzeit-university-are-attack-education-itself
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