Gaza University Strike Kills Three in Gaza City
An Israeli drone strike on Gaza City’s Islamic University killed three people and wounded eight others on Sunday, in the latest deadly attack on Gaza’s education sector despite a truce that has been in place for more than a year. The Gaza university strike hit while students were attending classes, according to Gaza’s education ministry.
Al Shifa Hospital said it received three bodies and treated eight people who were wounded in the strike. Two sources at the Islamic University said those killed were administrative staff and the injured were students.
Palestinian media named the dead as Ashraf Dahlan, Shadi Abu Ataya and Sami Baroud, according to a report in The Times of Israel. The Israeli military told that paper the strike had targeted what it called terror operatives and that further details would follow. When Dawn’s reporting team reached the military for comment, it said it was looking into the reports.
Four more people were killed elsewhere in Gaza on Sunday, Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said. Two died in an airstrike in the southern city of Khan Yunis, one in central Deir al Balah and one in the north of the Strip.
Students were in class, ministry says
Gaza’s education ministry said students had been present for classes when the strike hit. It condemned the attack in a statement, saying: “The global silence regarding attacks on students and universities serves as encouragement for the continuation of these crimes.”
The ministry said the strike came at a time when Gaza’s higher education sector faced what it called total annihilation, with 95 per cent of the buildings belonging to academic institutions damaged during the war.
“This heinous assault is part of a continuous series of attacks on education; over the past six days, 10 students and educators have been killed by the occupation’s fire,” the ministry said.
The Gaza university strike and the fragile truce
A truce has been in effect in Gaza for over a year, but it has failed to halt Israeli attacks in the territory. At least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire, according to the territory’s health officials, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed.
The health ministry’s fuller figures, reported by Al Mayadeen, put the toll since the ceasefire at 1,551 and the total since October 2023 at 74,544. Dawn’s own reporting puts the overall death toll at more than 74,000.
Sunday’s deaths follow a pattern Feature Pakistan has tracked through the ceasefire period. Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in Gaza on Thursday, and an earlier round of strikes on October 17 also killed Palestinians across the Strip. The strike on a university adds an education target to that toll, after a Turkish court this week ordered a probe into alleged abuse of Gaza flotilla activists and Pakistan urged UN action on Palestine at a UN General Assembly committee.
The scale of civilian harm is also visible in UN figures: nearly 50,000 women and girls have been killed or maimed in Gaza since October 2023, according to UN Women.
What happens next
The Israeli military has not yet given a fuller account of the university strike beyond saying it was looking into the reports and that further details would follow. Gaza’s education ministry has condemned the attack and warned that continued strikes on students and universities compound the destruction of the territory’s education system.
Sunday’s toll will add to the post-ceasefire figures that health officials update as casualties from each round of strikes are confirmed. For Gaza’s students, the strike is a further sign that classrooms remain inside the war’s reach even under a truce.
What happened at the Islamic University on Sunday?
An Israeli drone strike hit Gaza City’s Islamic University while students were attending classes. Three administrative staff were killed and eight people, including students, were wounded, according to Al Shifa Hospital and sources at the university.
How many people were killed across Gaza on Sunday?
Seven people in total: three at the university in Gaza City and four elsewhere, two in Khan Yunis, one in Deir al Balah and one in the north of the Strip, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
