Democracy: The Destruction of the Martyrs' Monument at Birzeit University is a War on Identity, Memory, and Education

Ramallah - Afaq News - The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned Birzeit University this morning, Monday. In a statement issued today, it said that the incursion of occupation forces into the campus of Birzeit University, accompanied by a military bulldozer that demolished the monument to the (Martyrs of the Student Movement at the university) who have fallen over the years while facing the occupation and its criminal policies against our Palestinian people and students, comes in the context of the declared war on the Palestinian existence, identity, and memory embodied by the student movement and education, especially higher education, which Birzeit University has long excelled in.

The Front added in its statement that what Palestinian universities are subjected to in terms of continuous raids and arrests affecting hundreds of their male and female students constitutes a violation of the sanctity of education, accompanied by the brutal aggression faced by our Palestinian people in their cities, villages, and camps at the hands of the occupation army and settler gangs, amidst the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and ethnic cleansing and displacement in Gaza. This requires confronting it through adopting a national plan and strategy agreed upon by all Palestinians, a plan based on framing our people's national resistance against the annexation scheme that aims to eliminate our national project.

The Democratic Front concluded its statement by affirming that the student movement at Birzeit University and other Palestinian universities will not be deterred by the oppression and brutality of the occupation or the incursions into universities and the arrest of students from continuing to play its proactive and active role in confronting the occupation, which it has always been distinguished by. The Front called on all international bodies, led by the United Nations, UNESCO, human rights organizations, and regional and international university unions, to pressure the occupying state to stop its violations and crimes against our people and against the sanctity of education guaranteed by all international charters.