In the rubble of Gaza’s destroyed civic landscape, a cluster of solar‑powered tents has become more than a classroom substitute. It is a moral statement – that academic life, even when bombed and besieged, refuses to vanish entirely.

Recent reporting from Al Jazeera details how Scholars Without Borders built “University City” in al‑Mawasi, Khan Younis: six makeshift halls serving up to 600 students daily, powered by solar energy and shared among multiple institutions. For nursing and medical students, this is their first chance at in‑person learning after two years of war, displacement, and broken internet connections inside crowded tents. But behind this fragile hope lies a far larger tragedy: the systematic destruction of higher education across Gaza.

The Scholasticide We Refuse to Name

According to the report, more than 60 university buildings have been completely demolished, and over 7,000 students and academics have been killed or injured. The Islamic University, Al‑Azhar University, and the Palestine College of Nursing are either in ruins or inaccessible. This is not collateral damage – it is the patterned erasure of an entire academic generation. UN experts have used the term “scholasticide”: the deliberate dismantling of education through the destruction of institutions, personnel, and the very conditions that make learning possible.

“A destroyed campus can be rebuilt. A broken academic generation is far harder to restore.”

Students like Mariam Nasr, a first‑year nursing student displaced from Rafah, describe waking at 5 a.m. to walk nearly four kilometres just to reach the makeshift university. Others rely on donkey carts or overcrowded vans, spending hours to attend a single lecture. Once class ends, they return to tents with no stable electricity, shared phones, and intermittent internet. Education has become an act of extreme endurance.

Why In‑Person Learning Is a Lifeline for Future Healers

For nursing and medical education, online learning cannot replace clinical skills, hands‑on training, or direct mentorship. Dr Essam Mughari, a professor at the Palestine College of Nursing, notes that “being able to gather, interact, and learn together restores something vital.” The makeshift university prioritises practical and discussion‑based courses – exactly what health professionals need most. Without such spaces, Gaza’s future doctors and nurses would be lost entirely, deepening the healthcare collapse already caused by war.

📌 What University City provides – and what it cannot

  • Provides: Shared physical learning, solar‑powered internet, a sense of normalcy, rotating access for 600+ students/day.
  • Cannot replace: Laboratories, libraries, full campuses, safe transport, stable housing, or the thousands of lost academic lives.

Resilience Is Not a Substitute for Rights

The global community often celebrates such emergency initiatives as inspiring resilience. But resilience should never be used to excuse the absence of accountability. Temporary classrooms cannot become the new normal. Reconstruction materials remain blocked under the ceasefire agreement, and Israel has not allowed the necessary supplies to rebuild schools and universities. Without sustained pressure on all parties to protect education as a civilian good, makeshift solutions will remain the ceiling, not the floor.

Policy Lessons for Human Rights and Donor Communities

First, higher education must be treated as an essential humanitarian sector, not an optional extra. Second, emergency responses must include funding for portable learning infrastructure, fuel, internet, and safe transport for students. Third, the international community must document every destroyed classroom and killed academic for future accountability mechanisms. Finally, reconstruction plans should prioritise universities alongside hospitals – because a society that cannot educate its nurses, teachers, and engineers cannot recover.

Gaza’s makeshift University City is a testament to courage. But it is also an indictment: no student should have to walk for hours under the threat of attack just to reach a tent that smells of hope and scarcity. The right to education is not a luxury to be delivered by NGOs after bombs fall – it is a fundamental human right that must be protected before, during, and after conflict.

Source: This analysis is based on “Makeshift Gaza university offers chance to resurrect academic studies” by Ahmed Al‑Najjar, Al Jazeera, 11 April 2026. All facts, figures, and testimonies are drawn from that report. The author has added policy commentary and human‑rights framing.