A video is widely circulating, of an entire, large building complex, identified as the main campus of the Al-Israa University in Gaza City, being blown up in one giant explosion. The West Bank’s Birzeit University posted the dramatic video, condemning the “brutal assault and bombing of Al-Israa University campus by the Israeli occupation south of Gaza City.” It charged the IDF forces had occupied the campus for 70 days before demolishing it, “turning it into their base, and military barracks for their forces.”
Birzeit University added: “The attack wasn’t only on the campus, but it was also against the national museum established by the university, containing more than 3 thousand rare artifacts which the Israeli occupation stole, and then bombed the museum to cover up for the crime.”
This is only the latest act in a systematic destruction of Palestine’s precious cultural heritage in Gaza which is comparable to the destruction ISIS carried out, for example, in Palmera, Syria. Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Pastor, Rev. Munther Issac called attention to a devastating photo spread of the destruction of Gaza’s cultural heritage published in London’s The Guardian. The before-and-after pictures should be seen.
Al Isaara can now be added to that spread.
In his Jan. 18 briefing, State Department Spokesit Matthew Miller, refused to condemn such ISIS-like destruction of Palestine’s centers of learning, although pounded by Said Arikat, Washington Bureau chief for Jerusalem’s Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, and Matt Lee of Associated Press, to do so.
