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17 November 2023
The conflict between Israel and Hamas: the voices of scientists on the front lines
Hamas' deadly October 7 attacks on Israel and Israel's bombing of Gaza have upended lives, including those of researchers across the region.
Nature news team and freelance reporters
...
Residents of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are reeling from the fallout from the October 7 attacks on Israel by the militant organization Hamas. Hamas members killed around 1,200 people, including at least 28 children, according to data compiled by the Haaretz newspaper. Some 240 people were taken prisoner, including at least 33 children.
As of November 15, the death toll from Israeli bombing of Gaza and the subsequent ground operation stood at more than 11,000, including more than 4,500 children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. United Nations ( OCHA ) and the United Nations children's agency ( UNICEF ). More than 1.6 million people have been left homeless and 22 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are not functioning, according to the World Health Organization.
Researchers, scientific and health infrastructures are all affected. In Israel and the West Bank, laboratories are empty and most academic work has been halted or slowed. Many Israeli researchers have been called up as military reservists.
The United Nations Satellite Center ( UNOSAT ) told Nature that the buildings of five of Gaza's six main universities were damaged.
Nature spoke to researchers in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, as well as their international collaborators, to get their views.
Israel measures the cost paid
The fallout from the October 7 Hamas attacks was felt by the academic community throughout Israel, but especially in the south, near the border with Gaza, where the militant organization's attacks took place. Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in the Negev, located in the southern town of Be'er Sheva, about 40 kilometers from Gaza, lost 84 people, including students, faculty members and family members. Five other people were kidnapped and nine were injured, according to a university spokesperson. Among the dead, entire families were wiped out in one day.
Among them, theoretical physicist Sergey Gredeskul, originally from Ukraine, and his wife Viktoria, killed in their house in Ofakim, about twenty kilometers west of Be'er Sheva. “Besides being a great physicist, Sergey was also a musician, a storyteller and a historian of the famous Kharkiv physics school,” explains Oleg Krichevsky, director of the physics faculty at BGU University, who was a close family friend.
"That day we were contacted by Gredeskul's grandson, who lives in Europe, and their daughter in Ukraine. He told us that his grandparents were not answering the phone. So we started contacting them. call us. After several unsuccessful attempts, I filed a missing persons notice with the police.
After learning that the couple had been killed, Krichevsky went to their home to collect their belongings, at the request of their daughter. He says he saw bullet holes everywhere.
At Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, 34 students and faculty members' parents were killed in southern communities, or were among at least 260 people killed when Hamas militants attacked the Supernova music festival near the border with Gaza. Three parents of professors and students are among some 240 people kidnapped by Hamas. The dead also included army reservists who tried to protect people from the attackers.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, also lost faculty members. One of them, Marcel Frailich Kaplun, from the science education department, was murdered at Kibbutz Be'eri, the community facility where she lived. Her husband, Dror Kaplun, is still missing.
Marcelle Frailich Kaplun was a researcher specializing in improving science education, particularly chemistry. “Marcelle was the kind of person everyone likes to work with: intelligent, dedicated, the type to energize others,” wrote her colleague Miri Kesner in a tribute published by the Weizmann Institute. She was “passionate about demonstrating the relevance of chemistry to industry and to our daily lives,” Ms. Kesner wrote.
Arie Zaban, president of Bar-Ilan University, explains that the campus is empty because the start of the academic year has been postponed and many doctoral students and young researchers have been drafted into the army . The university opened an emotional helpline. The optometry department activated its mobile vision clinic, which travels to treat evacuees from kibbutzim and southern cities, such as Ofakim and Netivot.
“A lot of people lost their glasses during the evacuation, so [optometrists] come to do eye exams and prepare special glasses for them,” explains Mr. Zaban. While tensions are high, the university of Tel Aviv also supports its Arab Israeli students, who represent 15% of the student population.
“We have made it a priority to ensure that these students feel safe when they come to the university,” Vice President Millet Shamir said in a statement posted on the university’s website. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for incitement and hate speech on our campus, whether directed against Jews or Arabs.
Gaza universities targeted
Israel's bombings and ground operations against Hamas in Gaza are wreaking havoc on universities and scientific infrastructure.
Gaza has 17 higher education institutions, 6 of which are traditional universities, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics , based in Ramallah in the West Bank. A seventh, Al-Quds Open University (AQOU), provides distance education. All seven universities have campuses in areas that the Israeli military has ordered to evacuate.
According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, based in Ramallah, the buildings of five of the traditional universities were moderately or severely damaged, including Al-Azhar University - Gaza, Gaza University and the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), all located in Gaza City (see "Israel-Hamas conflict"). UNOSAT independently noted damage to buildings at these five universities. A UNOSAT image analyst told Nature that the agency uses "visual change detection analysis", a method of comparing satellite images collected before and after an event, to locate and assess damaged buildings.
Nine of the 14 buildings at IUG, the territory's oldest higher education institution, were destroyed in two waves of bombing on October 9 and 11, including science laboratories, information technology buildings and medical teaching buildings. None of IUG's 17,000 students or more than 300 faculty members were on site at the time of the destruction. However, many students were killed or injured in other bombings, says Amani Al Mqadma, the university's head of international relations.
In a press release dated October 11 and accompanied by a video, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the country's military, confirmed that they had attacked the IUG. According to the statement, the university served as a "training camp for military intelligence officers, as well as for the development and production of weapons" and conferences were held to "raise funds for terrorism."
Nature asked the IDF if it could provide evidence that the university was involved in illegal activities. An IDF spokesperson responded in an emailed statement: "The IDF is currently focused on eliminating the [threat] from the terrorist organization Hamas. Issues of this type will be considered at a later date."
Nature was able to contact four researchers at universities in Gaza. Three of them have been left homeless since the bombing began and are among more than 1.6 million people who have been displaced within the Gaza Strip in response to IDF instructions to move to South. All expressed the feeling of now being alone.
The AQOU branch in Gaza also reported damage caused by the bombings. Mohammad Abu Jazar, an environmental engineer at the university, says he has lost all hope that the international community will come to their aid. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe there is a scientific community, or a global scientific community, that can do anything."
Hatem Ali Elaydi, an electrical engineer at the IUG, explains that he hosts 74 people from 7 families in his home. He says his daily priority is searching for food, clean water , medicine, cleaning supplies and clothes for families who have lost their homes. "There is no electricity, no Internet, no drinking water, no fuel" and families drink salt water from the sea. He says they start their day by taking news of each other to find out who they lost in the bombings of the previous night.
Bill Williamson, a social scientist at the University of Durham, UK, conducted research for an upcoming study on Palestinian higher education. "I was writing about a system, which still worked, with all its faults. Today, it is being destroyed, at least in Gaza," he explains.
Fears for the West Bank In the West Bank, where nearly three million Palestinians live, parts of local government are run by the Palestinian National Authority. However, Israel retains responsibility for borders and security, and its citizens are increasingly settling in the region. According to OCHA, as of November 15, 183 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces. in the West Bank since October 7, bringing the death toll for 2023 to 427.
Three Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians, according to the UN. On October 9, Israel's Arms Licensing Department launched what it called "an emergency operation to enable as many civilians as possible to arm themselves."
Researchers interviewed by Nature say this increased violence has shut down face-to-face teaching and research at the West Bank's 34 higher education institutions, including 13 universities, compounding difficulties faced by staff and students. .
Majdi Owda, a data analytics researcher at the Arab American University in Ramallah, says students and faculty are now at increased risk of being shot if they visit campuses. This is also partly explained by the fact that Palestinian motor vehicles can be identified by their license plates. “For the moment, we cannot allow anyone to move around in such an environment,” he explains.
“Security comes first,” adds Raed Debiy, spokesperson for An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the West Bank. Debiy says the university sends medical students who have completed their clinical training to West Bank hospitals to help injured people.
Arrests of Palestinian academics and students have also increased. For many years, Israeli authorities have used administrative detention orders, a legal procedure that allows the military to arrest and imprison people considered to pose a security risk, without the need to to explain the charges against them. As of the end of June this year, 1,117 Palestinians were detained under this system, according to the human rights organization B'Tselem in Jerusalem. More recent data is not yet available.
On November 1, astrophysicist Imad Barghouthi of Jerusalem's Al-Quds University was sentenced to six months in prison after police burst into his home at 3 a.m. on October 23 and handcuffed him. and took him away, according to his daughter Duha.
Mario Martone, a theoretical physicist at King's College London and a member of Scientists for Palestine, which promotes research in the Palestinian territories, is campaigning for Barghouti's release. He says Mr. Barghouti has great influence in his field. "His early work on plasma dynamics in the cosmological context was international in scope. He has no political affiliation and has never carried out violent actions," says Mr. Martone.
Nature has contacted the IDF for more details on Barghouthi's arrest. The agency referred us to the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, and the police. At the time of publication of this article, neither had responded.
Arrests of Palestinian academics and students have also increased. For many years, Israeli authorities have used administrative detention orders, a legal procedure that allows the military to arrest and imprison people considered to pose a security risk, without the need to to explain the charges against them. As of the end of June this year, 1,117 Palestinians were detained under this system, according to the human rights organization B'Tselem in Jerusalem. More recent data is not yet available.
On November 1, astrophysicist Imad Barghouthi of Jerusalem's Al-Quds University was sentenced to six months in prison after police burst into his home at 3 a.m. on October 23 and handcuffed him. and took him away, according to his daughter Duha.
Mario Martone, a theoretical physicist at King's College London and a member of Scientists for Palestine, which promotes research in the Palestinian territories, is campaigning for Barghouti's release. He says Mr. Barghouti has great influence in his field.
"His early work on plasma dynamics in the cosmological context was international in scope. He has no political affiliation and has never carried out violent actions," says Mr. Martone.
Nature has contacted the IDF for more details on Barghouthi's arrest. The agency referred us to the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, and the police. At the time of publication of this article, neither had responded.
The current situation "is really sad, really traumatic," says Arie Zaban, president of Bar-Ilan University and president of the Association of University Directors in Israel.
“But at the same time, I know we will get through this and make this country a better place, in the name of the people who lost their lives.” Bar-Ilan concluded a bilateral cooperation agreement with the Moroccan National Consortium for Energy Transition, which includes 20 research groups from Moroccan universities. Mr. Zaban expects these collaborations to continue. “These projects usually happen person to person, and once that happens, it's a very strong relationship and it takes a lot to break it,” he explains.
At the same time, most international students and researchers who worked at the Weizmann Institute have returned or are returning to their home countries, says Eyal Rotenberg, an earth scientist at the Weizmann Institute. International scientific collaboration is seriously affected.
The situation is similar in the West Bank. Mr. Debiy, of An-Najah University, says joint projects, including conferences with colleagues from Europe and the United States, are being canceled or postponed. International academics can no longer come to the West Bank. “It is no longer even very safe to access the bridge between Jordan and Palestine.”
"We had an international conference on dentistry that was postponed. An international research conference for medical students, which was supposed to start on October 8, was completely canceled," he adds. Some informal cooperation existed between researchers from Israel and the Palestinian territories. But Yaakov Garb, a social and environmental scientist at BGU, says his Gaza-based colleagues now "spend most of their days searching for clean water and basic supplies."
Mr Williamson is a trustee of the Durham Palestine Educational Trust, a UK charity which supports Palestinian students and researchers to study at Durham University. He hopes "that once the war is over, we can encourage relevant governments and academics to think about helping rebuild Palestinian higher education."
“This is not just a good thing for the Palestinians; it is essential that we do this for the collective security of the Middle East and, indeed, for a better world.
doi:
https://doi.org/10.1038/d44148-023-00322-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-023-00322-w
