📌 Al-Israa University Researcher Discusses the Resilience of Higher Education During the Genocide War at a Global Conference in Turkey
Gaza – Public Relations 🇵🇸
Dr. Salam Al-Ustadh, Head of the English Department at Al-Israa University and currently a research fellow at King's College London, participated in the World Conference on Decolonization 2026: Decolonizing the Production and Circulation of Knowledge, held at the Atatürk Cultural Center in Istanbul earlier this month. The conference brought together a distinguished group of academics, researchers, and international intellectual institutions.
During the conference, Dr. Al-Ustadh presented a research paper titled “The Crisis and Resilience of Higher Education in Light of the 2023 Gaza War: An Analytical and Critical Reading.” The paper examined the reality of higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip amid the war and the extensive destruction inflicted on universities and educational infrastructure. It also addressed the challenges faced by academics and students, including forced interruptions to education, difficulties accessing educational resources, and the direct targeting of the academic environment.
The paper focused on the concept of “resistant education” (or “education as resistance”), explaining how education transformed from being one of the war’s victims into a tool for resilience and strengthening collective determination. This was demonstrated through the persistence of students and academics in continuing the educational process and producing knowledge despite severe humanitarian and living conditions.
The study also discussed the importance of protecting the right to education as a fundamental human right and emphasized the need to support Palestinian academic institutions in preserving their scientific and intellectual role in the face of attempts at marginalization and epistemic exclusion. These issues were examined within broader contexts related to critiquing colonial thought and dismantling the knowledge structures associated with it.
The conference featured extensive discussions on the root causes of current global crises, the historical legacy of colonialism, and its continuing impact on the contemporary international order. It also addressed issues of epistemic justice and the independence of knowledge production in countries of the Global South.
The conference was organized by several international academic and intellectual institutions, including Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Center for Islamic Studies (ISAM), Fudan University, International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Leeds, and Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, giving the forum a broad international academic and intellectual character.