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Israel kills dozens of academics, destroys every university in the Gaza Strip (euromedmonitor.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/13896072

Geneva - The Israeli army has killed 94 university professors, along with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, as part of its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since 7 October 2023, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement issued on Saturday

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army has targeted academic, scientific, and intellectual figures in the Strip in deliberate and specific air raids on their homes without prior notice. Those targeted have been crushed to death beneath the rubble, along with members of their families and other displaced families.

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[+] [email protected] -8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Those targeted include 17 individuals who held professor degrees, 59 who held doctoral degrees, and 18 who held master’s degrees, the rights group stated

The article tries to suggest Israel is trying to wipe out academia, but if you see these numbers vs the total casualties you'd think they are sparing them

Unless of course there were only 17 professors in all of Gaza

[–] Rednax 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

At the end of november 2023, The Netherlands had a population of 17 947 406. In the schoolyear 22/23, it had around 821.1k students (hbo + wo). Source: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/cijfers/detail/37220

Meaning about 4.57% of the population was a student.

Gaza had a population of around 2,3 million according to wikipedia. Meaning around 105000 students if they also have a ratio of 4.57% of students.

According to the article, Pallestine claims that 4,327 students have been killed. This is about 4.1% of the 105 000 estimated students.

According to the following article, about 22.8k people have been killed in Gaza so far. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza That is about 1% of the 2.3 million.

So based on these napkin calculations, I'd say student are way more likely to be killed.

While this may be related to their age bracket, and not their scholar status, I conclude that they certainly are not spared.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well of course I'm reacting to the part I'm quoting...

I found in a wiki that Gaza has around 140k higher education students, or around 6%. (And apparently they passed 25k casualties recently :( )

I don't really understand what mechanism is behind your hypothesis that they are more likely to be killed because of their age bracket? The article is claiming that they are being killed with "deliberate and specific air raids" but it seems really difficult for a bomber pilot to select your targets based on their age.

[–] Rednax 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My hypothesis is that people of fighting age, would be more likely to die in a conflict. I have no idea if it is true. The reason I mention it, is to point out that I did not establish causation between beeing a student and a higher death chance, only correlation.

With the numbers you mention, it still holds true that this group has a significantly higher death percentage than average.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah, but the article in the OP says the reason they're dying (at a higher chance than 'normal') is because they're specifically targeted with bombs being thrown from airplanes.

To me it seems highly unlikely that they know exactly where these people are located to an extent they can effectively single them out with bombs, as I'm reading 80% of all Gazans are currently displaced. And subsequently, if they did, their casualty rate would be much higher