Reflections after the Webinar – Contours of Solidarity: Voices of Palestinian Educators and Children

As part of a powerful exhibition at UCL East called ‘Palestinian Childhoods: Solidarity and Sumud,’ SWANA Forum for Social Justice was honoured to host a webinar [see recording] on the 12th September highlighting Palestinian educators and students’ thoughts on Sumud. We heard from Dr Bashar I. J. Farra (PhD Candidate at Al-Aqsa University, Gaza), Dr Saida Affouneh (Professor at An-Najah University, West Bank) and Dr Fadel Alsawayfe (Professor at Bethlehem University, West Bank) who spoke about their and their students’ experiences of Sumud.

The conversation with our guests helped us think through what it means to show solidarity with Palestinians beyond sympathy. They told us that solidarity with them is remembering and speaking about and to their children and to Palestinians in general, who somehow hold on to hope, to a future, to a better version of humanity. Dr Saida explored with us her idea of a Pedagogy of Sumud, when teachers and students learn how to survive and live and dream in the past, present and future; Dr Bashar and Dr Fadel spoke to us about Sumud being part of Palestinian identity and everyday life from birth, even before this genocidal moment in time. Dr Fadel wondered if this is now an era of post-sumud. We, at SWANA-FSJ, ask if this post-sumud, is perhaps a widening and deepening of the sumud already so familiar and sustaining to Palestinians. Is this post-sumud an entanglement with a wider global awakening to systemic injustice everywhere? In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians!

Education As Life: connection, communication and co-creation

By Asma Mustafa, Nidal Al Haj Sleiman, Reem Ben Giaber and Jumana Al-Waeli (April 2025)

On March 28 2025, the SWANA Forum for Social Justice hosted Ms. Asma Mustafa who spoke about her lived experiences as a teacher in Gaza over the last 18 months. Asma, who is a proud English Language teacher with multiple professional recognitions, has recently resorted to using her voice and words to share with the world the struggles of Palestinian children and teachers. Asma has been regularly writing Arabic blogs, speaking to international newspapers and news channels, and giving interviews to international journalists to tell the stories of students, parents, fellow teachers as well as her own story. Asma’s stories and blogs have documented the horrific struggles of displacement, Israeli attacks on Palestinian families and children, and the day-to-day impact of loss, fear and destruction of homes and schools. 

Listening to the extraordinary courage and perseverance of Asma Mustafa was deeply moving. What she described was education seen as an assertion of rooted life and continuity – what it means to be human. We need to feel connected to others and the land around us, we need to be able to communicate based on a shared understanding of lived experience and we need to be able to co-create ideas, materials and futures that assert our right to life, dignity and flourishing.

When Asma looks into the camera and declares that she carries a mission, a message for her people, we all listen.  She tells us, and any despairing teacher colleagues in Gaza, that in the absence of all conventional educational resources, the teachers must be the classroom, the textbook, the curriculum, the pen, the paper and even the pedagogical process itself. We, attending the Webinar, are quiet under the weight of this truth. Gaza teaches us every day and it teaches us about teaching and learning itself. Education has lost its way – it has become about information and not knowledge. It has become about delivery and consumption, not reconstruction and co-creation. We must heed Asma’s call to embody education within our lived experience now, not as preparation for life later on. In Gaza, life later on is not a given but education now is.

And Asma’s embodiment of education entails holding her students, telling them stories, singing with them, playing games and drawing with them so they remember what it means to be alive, joyful, creative and hopeful, what it means to be human.

While our conversation with Asma reconstructs all the above for us, below are potential helpful activities that we shared at our Webinar and that we can get on with in the meantime. One attendee already responded to the first suggestion and put together a Resource Handbook with links to various resources on her drive (compressed and collated) so that Asma and other teachers do not have to waste time, battery charge, data and effort to scour the internet for resources to use with primary school students in Gaza. We all thank Farah for her work.

All that is left to say, is keep learning, seeing, thinking, talking and collective acting for/with Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Palestinians everywhere.

Things we can do:

  • Help Asma by doing some internet research for short videos, stories, drama games, art activities for Asma’s students. She could share this list with others so she and others don’t have to waste precious charge and data on internet research. Volunteer to be the person to collate a list to send to Asma’s email or Google Drive. 
  • Donate to UNRWA, Save the Children UK, donate to BRISMES and FOBZU.
  • Buy and donate eSIMS
  • Join a mentorship scheme like this one where you can help university applicants through the complicated forms: 

https://www.muslimresearchersnetwork.org/mentorship.html or https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hiba-b-ibrahim-%F0%9F%8D%89-%F0%9F%87%B5%F0%9F%87%B8-a1736859_we-need-more-volunteer-mentors-to-work-with-activity-7308942379271471105-TMZ5?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAABx48WEBLjdhmemj8dm_U2UIc9BeWVpBrW4&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=copy_link

  • Connect with others and organise yourselves in solidarity for Palestinians. Join your local Pro-Palestine groups, your BDS groups –. Grief for this world is made lighter in community and collective action.
  • Create institutional partnerships and links with Colleges and Universities in Gaza. Work in your universities and institutions to set these up. Here is a helpful guide developed by FOBZU and centres in Bristol and Cambridge University in the UK: https://fobzu.org/blog/2025/03/05/partnerships-with-palestine-guide-launch-hosted-at-bristol-university/

BLOG

A statement on the ceasefire in Gaza announced on January 15, 2025

Written by Dr. Nidal Al Haj Sleiman, Reem Ben Giaber and Jumana Al-Waeli, Co-founders of SWANA Forum for Social Justice on January 20th 2025

Disclaimer: This statement represents the thoughts of the co-founders of SWANA-FSJ and not the people and institutions they are associated with. 

On the 15th of January 2025, we heard the welcome news of a ceasefire in Gaza. The truce, however, would only begin four days after the announcement – on the 19th of January. Any celebration by the Palestinians was short-lived when the Israeli attacks on Gaza continued after the announcement, killing at least 100 people in the interim.

While we welcome the ceasefire announcement in Gaza with relief, we know that more painful work must be done to face the ongoing genocide that we are all witnessing every day. 

The people of Gaza will need time to find their loved ones and mourn the lives lost, to dig for unclaimed bodies and past memories in the rubble of their homes. At this point, at least 46,000 people have been killed whereas researchers published an article in world-leading medical journal The Lancet saying this number is more likely to be around 64,000. The ceasefire will not undo a genocide – a systematic and systemic erasure of the Palestinian-Gazan people – their schools, towns, camps, cities; their mosques and churches; their historical, cultural and social spaces and structures. Nothing will undo the abhorrent toll of death and wounds, injuries to bodies and souls. 

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Israeli army killed 12,241 students and 503 staff while injuring 19,619 students and 2,603 teachers. At least 88% of school buildings were either completely destroyed or badly damaged, while 51 university buildings were destroyed and 57 were damaged. These cold numbers represent shattered hopes and dreams, the future of Gazan people and their land – leaving parents and their children with ever-lasting physical and emotional wounds instead of pride, joy and celebrations at graduations and other milestones.  

Gazans will need the time and space to rebuild and to dig for any remnants of hope that may still lay strewn on the ground. To this end, SWANA Forum for Social Justice calls for:

  • Continued boycotting of the arms industry, complicit corporations, institutions and individual figures who supported, justified, defended and enabled the genocide 
  • A critical conversation that centres liberation and social justice for Palestinians and their occupied land. We invite reflection on educational debates in relation to the (de)legitimisation of all colonial ideologies and practices, enabling and sustaining occupation, erasure and genocide.

Moving forward, we renew our commitment to boycotting Israeli apartheid mechanisms at different levels. We commit to standing up for social justice and the right to freedom, education and democracy in Palestine and the rest of the SWANA region.

Hope amongst the rubble: Reimagining reparative praxis in Education and International Development

The Theatre of the Privileged Decolonial Movement and the SWANA Forum for Social Justice hosted the first Decolonial Cafe titled “Hope Amongst the Rubble: Reimagining Reparative Praxis in Education and International Development” online on June 4, 2024. This webinar emerged as a form of resistance against the pervasive silence in Western academic institutions regarding the scholasticide, ecocide, and genocide in Gaza and to act in solidarity with student encampments. It provided an opportunity to analyse contemporary oppressions related to colonial legacies and explore how to resist, act, learn, and unlearn within Western academic institutions during times of scholasticide, epistemicide, and genocide.

The speakers included Dr. Yamila Hussein Shanna, a distinguished Palestinian academic with expertise in SWANA, We’am Hamadan, a Palestinian doctoral student known for her work on education, technology, and Palestinian rights, and Maya El-Helou, a Lebanese doctoral student and vocal advocate for justice and equity in the region. Among the students from the UCL Encampment were individuals using the pseudonym “Akka.” “Ramallah,” another student from the encampment, could not attend due to a suspension issued to her by UCL on 4th June 2024. These speakers brought diverse perspectives and rich experiences to the discussion, highlighting the ongoing scholasticide in Palestine. Fifty attendees joined from across UCL and some from other universities.

Scholasticide

Professor Karma Nabulsi coined the term “scholasticide” during the 2008-2009 Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza, referring to the deliberate destruction of education systems and institutions[1]. This includes targeting buildings, and cultural heritage, and causing harm to educators and students, linking scholasticide closely with genocide. Genocides and colonial practices indicate a systematic eradication of a people, their knowledge, and their culture[2]. This deeper understanding calls for holding power accountable, beyond the depoliticised narratives often supported by donors.

Before its destruction, Palestine boasted one of the highest literacy rates in the SWANA region. However, since October 2023, the Gaza Strip has seen more killings of children, journalists, medical personnel, and UN staff than any other conflict worldwide, exacerbating the looming threat of a man-made famine over its 1.1 million inhabitants. Israeli forces have damaged or destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza, along with over 300 schools, cultural centres, and libraries. Images of the bombing of Gaza’s last-standing university, Al-Israa University, have circulated widely on social media. The loss of lives and targeted assassinations of students, researchers, and academics, including internationally respected scholars, deans, and presidents, has devastated the intellectual foundation of higher education in Gaza, affecting over 625,000 students and 23,000 teachers and professors[3]. This situation is further compounded by the funding and political challenges surrounding UNRWA[4].

Dr. Yamila added that scholasticide isn’t a new strategy. Educational professionals and students have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for decades. She shared a memory of the Israeli administration of her school in Jerusalem. Although some in authority sympathised with the resistance, they threatened to shut down the school if the resistance continued.

We’am focussed on ICT in Palestine and how cutting off telecommunications is integral to the ongoing genocide and the occupation’s evasion of accountability. She highlighted the deliberate targeting of ICT educators and professionals and explored how the switching off of power networks demonstrates the extent of control of the occupation, reaffirming the fragility of educational pathways under Israeli colonial control. She also highlighted the role of Meta and other Western media conglomerates in complicity with the regime by censoring Palestinian voices on social media through tactics like shadow banning. Meta has been implicated in suppressing accounts of pro-Palestinian voices. One AI program, known as Lavender, was used to develop a “kill list” that included as many as 37,000 Palestinians targeted for assassination with minimal human oversight. Another AI system, called “Where’s Daddy?”, tracked these individuals and was designed to target them while they were at home at night with their families. These targeting systems, combined with an extremely permissive bombing policy, resulted in entire Palestinian families being wiped out inside their homes. Another AI system, called “The Gospel,” was employed to intentionally destroy civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including apartment complexes, universities, and banks, as part of an effort to exert “civil pressure.” She asked how Palestinians are to have a “liveable life” under such control.

Education in the West Bank is also heavily censored. Students learn about the histories of neighbouring states but not their own, which distracts them from holding those who create such conditions accountable.

The intersection of ecocide and colonial violence further complicates the Palestinian struggle. The destruction of trees, farmlands, and ecosystems through military actions has dire implications for climate justice.

Suppression in Global Minority Institutions

Western universities’ suppression of student and staff voices, particularly those advocating for Palestinian rights, underscores a racialised hierarchy that validates certain perspectives while marginalising others. Palestinian students, whose families have been killed, and their calls for solidarity often go unheard. For instance, UCL has not acknowledged the assassination of Dr Refat Al Areer, a UCL alumnus and professor at the Islamic University in Gaza. This silence contrasts sharply with the narratives of resistance and resilience emerging from Gaza. Speakers asked how Palestinians are to have a “liveable life” under such control; how do we decide who is and who isn’t human? If we decide certain communities are not human, what does this mean for the future of humanity?

Noting the silence and silencing of formal university spaces and fields like education and international development, it appears that liberation comes faster and clearer from outside, such as the protests, arts, and film, with moral clarity outside formal academia. The latter has contorted itself into a ‘neutral’ space that claims its neutrality allows diversity of opinion -it has thereby, in one fell swoop, defined any resistance to justifying or normalising the genocide occuring in Palestine as an opinion, not fact.

How do we care?

The question raised was: how can academic research and knowledge exchange between the global north and south be leveraged to address the historical and contemporary root causes of genocides and epistemicides? What role do geopolitical dynamics, donor interests, and colonialism play in shaping educational interventions, development projects, and expertise? What ethical considerations should guide educators and researchers to ensure epistemic justice in their teaching, research, and development projects?

Imagining a just future is an act of resistance. It is an assertion of care, hope and life amid despair. This vision is vital in the face of attempts to silence Palestinian voices. The consensus was that contributing, innovating, and supporting existing movements to end the genocide and support Palestinian liberation is the way forward. Solidarity calls for reparations, restitution, and repair.

Yamila encouraged us to think beyond divestment to investment and remember that educational institutions are the people, and we must invest in them. Although BDS is a powerful tool in resistance against the occupation, we must strive towards investing in Palestinian universities. For example, can someone with knowledge of Arabic translate their page and find out how we can subscribe and support? She highlighted a scheme organised by an Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza and the voluntary teaching programme that is currently being set up.[5] It should be a grassroots, bottom-up movement that empowers Palestinians to stay in their own country rather than being transported to Western universities under scholarship programmes, which often reproduce colonial notions that education and scholarship are centred in the West. She said, “think of the university as a verb, not a noun.” We must centre Palestinian scholars’ role in advocating for a free Palestine, and how they foster epistemic justice in times of academic suppression. What happens if the phenomenon of “brain drain” takes them away to other countries?

We must also challenge colonial approaches to research and practice. There is a Tibaha kind of colonial approach to research: “Everything about you is open to scrutiny.”  UCL, like many institutions, often platforms privileged voices while sidelining Palestinian scholars. Palestinian voices must be given space and funding to write about their own experiences and struggles. Only Palestinian scholars should be given funding to write about Gaza. Dr. Yamila cautioned us against focusing on anti-Zionist White Israeli academics who are centred in debates on Palestinian struggle and liberation. We should centre and amplify Palestinian scholars and those who do not always comply with the rules of Western constructs of Palestinian liberation. At a student level, we can amplify voices by who we choose to include in our critiques; as academics, it stems from who we include in our reading lists, who we invite to speak at our events and who we choose to enter into research ties with.

Maya addressed the dissonance between settler colonial theory as an abstraction versus acknowledging and disrupting settler colonial practice in Palestine and South Lebanon. There is hypocrisy in talking about settler colonialism but not disrupting it in practice. She highlighted the disjuncture between the postcolonial classroom—learning decolonial theory, CRT, biopolitics, political resistance movements—and witnessing the repression of students’ rights on the ground, including academic freedoms and expression. The disconnect between learning about critique and then not being able to apply it in a real-world situation and on our own doorsteps has been a bewildering, frustrating, and disempowering experience for many who wish to speak in support of Palestine’s right to self-determination, freedom, and security. Maya described this as “cultural genocide”—“when we don’t allow knowledge to circulate.” Critical theories, such as postcolonial and decolonial studies, must incorporate necropolitics to understand the extent of cultural and environmental genocide fully. One needs to challenge the hypocrisy of discussing settler colonialism while ignoring its manifestations. We should not hesitate to make people feel uncomfortable about facing the truth. We can also appreciate Palestinian sumud while also demanding accountability for the systemic injustices they face. Sumud is a ‘Palestinian national concept and a part of the collective consciousness’ that represents the will to resist (to be steadfast)[6]. 

We’am cautioned against the over-glorification of Palestinian strength and resilience, as it inadvertently shifts the focus from the suffering of the Palestinian people and the violence they endure each day in Gaza and the West Bank. Solidarity with Palestine requires a global perspective, recognising that the struggle is not just about Gaza but about humanity and the planet. The ongoing crisis in Gaza is a microcosm of broader global issues. The fight for justice in Palestine is a fight for global liberation, climate justice, and the survival of humanity. It is imperative to centre Palestinian voices, support their scholarship, and hold power accountable to create a just and equitable world. We need to recognise the historical and contemporary genocidal/epistemicidal/ecocidal/childcidal[7] processes worldwide. While the situation in Gaza is our focal point, it emphasises the interconnectedness of research and praxis with the suffering, rights, well-being, and the tremendous resistance of people facing annihilation across diverse populations.

“We need safe spaces to be able to speak our mind without people looking at you in a funny way and making you feel incredibly uncomfortable when you mention Palestine,” Maya reminded us to ‘sit with the discomfort’ that potentially emerges when we speak to people about Palestine and genocide.

Solidarity is also about physical visibility. A student from the UCL student encampment remarked that seeing students come together in solidarity brings her joy, highlighting the importance of collective resistance. Be part of the student revolution, Intifada, and visit the student encampment. Visibility was a point communicated by “Ramallah,” emphasising that the connection between groups and advocates is extremely important in mobilisation. How can we become more visible?

At the end of the meeting, speakers and attendees spoke of how much they learned from each other and what a safe space this was to express ideas and ask questions that may have not been possible in different contexts. Safe spaces are vital to meaningfully discuss solidarity with Palestine and ensure researcher/student well-being. Indeed, speaking to our Palestinian colleagues inspired us even more to show up in solidarity for Palestinains and to think of ways to show this solidarity in action. While speaking up and addressing the grave injustices and genocidal practices against education and Palestinian knowledge and culture is important, there is an urgency in acting against all forms and mechanisms of killing, such as investing in the arms industry, companies that perpetuate apartheid,  and endorsing ideas and technologies that politically and financially support the zionist project. Some of us were made aware of the Boycott, Sanction and Divest (BDS) movement at UCL and joined the working group in various institution-related activities to demand boycott and divestment from arms companies and other institutions complicit in the occupation, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinan people. 

How do we, academics and Early Career Researchers, care and stand in solidarity when scholasticide threatens the very existence of Palestine’s academic foundations and fundamental freedoms? As this blog post suggests, by strengthening reparative praxis in advocating for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, centering the voices of Palestinian scholars and students, investing in Palestinian academic institutions and creating safe spaces for scholars, students and allies to meaningfully contribute to resistance in academic spaces in the face of scholasticide and epistemic injustice.   

Co-authored by Yamila Hussein Shanna, Mayal El-Helou, We’am Hamadan, Laila Kadiwal, Nidal Al Haj Sleiman, Angelique Mulholland, Jumana Al-Waeli and Reem Ben Giaber (October, 2024)

[1] Wind, M (2024) Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli universities Deny Palestinian Freedom. London: Verso

[2] Césaire, A. (2000). Discourse on colonialism. NYU Press.

[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-experts-deeply-concerned-over-scholasticide-gaza

[4] https://unwatch.org/updated-list-of-countries-suspending-unwra-funding/

[5] See Priorities | gazauniversities.org

[6] https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/165375

[7] https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/scourge-of-childcide