From Jerusalem to Gaza: when teachers are targeted, a people’s future is executed
“I am sending you …wise ones”
“Therefore I am sending you prophets, wise ones, and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.” -Matt 23:34
Jesus’s words are not an indictment of history. They are a diagnosis of the present. We still build memorials to yesterday’s sages while refusing the wise ones among us. And yet, another word from Jesus must be heard alongside the woe: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” -Matt 5:9.
In this article we dare to see Gaza’s teachers, Muslim and Christian alike, as beloved neighbors and those peacemakers: the wise ones who form children for life together. They are not merely “innocents caught in crossfire.” They are active builders of peace, and that vocation unsettles any power that prefers control to communion.
To silence a prophet is to stop a cry.
To silence a teacher is to starve a future.
What the Numbers Reveal About Love
I was raised hearing a phrase repeated as if it were wisdom: that there would be Peace when Palestinians loved their children more than they hated Jews. I know now that this was not wisdom. It was a weapon, propaganda. It taught me to fear, not to see.
But the witness of Gaza’s schools tells another story. Before the devastation, families budgeted for uniforms and tuition and tutoring. Girls advanced through secondary school and into university. Young people chose the disciplines that build a society: education, health, engineering, law, computer technology, business. In the largest school network, the curriculum included human rights, conflict resolution, and tolerance, nonviolence taught as a skill, a responsibility, a way of life.
This is not the pedagogy of hate.
This is peacemaking by practice.
(For a concise snapshot of Gaza’s education profile and the scale of damage, see the Evidence Sidebar in this piece bel0w.)
Gaza’s Sages: A People Formed by School
“Blessed are the peacemakers…” – Matthew 5:9. In Gaza, that blessing has long worn a teacher’s face. Before the present devastation, daily life was structured around school. Families budgeted scarce resources to ensure educational success. Mothers and fathers pushed sons and daughters through secondary school and into university. Classrooms became places where children practiced patience, learned each other’s stories, and discovered how to argue without hatred. This is what peacemaking looks like before it makes headlines.
The educational map of Gaza told a hopeful truth. Secondary completion was common. Women’s schooling matched or exceeded men’s. Higher education drew tens of thousands into fields that build a society: education, health, engineering, law, computers and technology, business, and administration. And in UNRWA schools, which educate the majority of Gaza’s children, a formal Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Tolerance program has, for years, taught nonviolence, rights and responsibilities, and peaceful problem-solving, lesson by lesson.
None of this erases grief. But it contradicts a lie that many of us were taught: Palestinians do not love their children, that hatred is their curriculum. Look closely at attendance registers, graduation photos, science fairs, teacher-training workshops, the quiet pride of parents at the back of crowded classrooms, and you will see something else: a people choosing their children’s future, on purpose, together.
And that is why the destruction of schools and universities and the killing of teachers, cuts so deep. It is not simply the loss of building. It is the attempted execution of the wise, the very peacemakers Jesus blesses.
Scholasticide: Executing the Future by Destroying Schools
Empire always promises order; Jesus promises peace. The two are not the same. Order can be imposed by fear: peace is formed by love, lesson by lesson, until mercy becomes a habit.
“I am sending you… wise ones,” Jesus says, and then He names what empires do to them: they are flogged and pursued from town to town (Matt 23:34). That pattern is not ancient history. In Gaza, teachers have been detained and disappeared, schools and universities shattered, libraries burned, labs leveled, classrooms turned into shelters and then into targets. The aim is not only to stop a term or cancel an exam; it is to break the line of formation, to sever children from the people who teach them dignity, patience, truth-telling, and civic courage.
“Blessed are the peacemakers,“ Jesus says (Matthew 5:9). When the peacemakers are persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10), it tells you something sober about the powers at work. What empire cannot control, it will try to neutralize. In Gaza, that has meant silencing the peacemakers by leveling the places where peace is learned.
Jesus blesses the people who practice and teach what makes for a reconciled common life. Educators are not merely “innocent bystander.” They are peace activists.
Stories of the Sages
I’m a teacher. I know the feel of the classroom: the mentor leaning over a draft, the music instructor counting time on her knee. When Gaza’s teachers are killed, I know exactly what’s taken from the children: their future voice, their hope in the future, their rehearsal for peace.
Dr. Refaat Alareer – Professor, mentor, poet
An English-literature professor and mentor to generations of writers, he taught students to name the world with moral clarity. He was killed in a targeted airstrike, along with members of his family. His poem “If I Must Die” now tutors readers far beyond his classroom, a final lesson in courage and care.
Dr. Sufyan Tayeh – physicist and university president
A researcher in physics and applied mathematics and the president of a major Gaza university, he was killed with his family. He had spent years building labs and futures, a patient architect of the common good.
Elham Farah – music teacher, community elder
A beloved educator from Gaza’s ancient Christian community, she was fatally shot near her home. For decades she taught children how to hear and make beauty. Her lessons were a quiet defiance: peace is the harmony we create when our lives move in rhythm with others.
“Wafa” – UNRWA classroom teacher
A primary school teacher who was killed with her family. One name among hundreds of educators lost, and thousands of students. Her work was ordinary and holy: tracing letters, calming fear, turning quarrels into conversations.
These are the peacemakers Jesus blesses – reviled and persecuted (Matthew 5:11-12). Their witness instructs us still. To honor them is to guard the teachers who remain, to rebuild the rooms where peace is taught, and to refuse the lie that control and peace are the same thing.
The Call: Rebuild the rooms where peace is taught
“The kings of Gentiles have absolute power and lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But it is not to be this way with you; on the contrary, the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader, like the servant ” -Luke 22:25-26
If Empire seeks control, disciples seek communion. Let us seek communion with the sages. Our task is not only to mourn what has been destroyed, but to stand guard over the sages who remain and raise again the rooms where peace is taught – lesson by lesson, teacher by teacher.
First, pray. Pray the beatitudes over the teachers of all Palestine. Ask for your congregation to pray with you for the teachers of Gaza and the West Bank. Pray for the children to be taught to have a voice, a future, and the tools for peace.
Second, listen. Host listening circles with Palestinian teachers and students, let their needs shape your prayers and your giving. Anar is a great resource to invite to your church.
Third, bear witness and insist on protection. Document threats to educators and attacks on schools. Amplify testimony with care. Teach your congregations and communities the difference between control and peace.
Fourth, be a watchman. When propaganda arises, name it. You must question anything that dehumanizes another human being. This is the heart of propaganda. When identified, tell the true humanizing story.
Finally, heal & rebuild. This means funding education for new educators and mobilizing to help rebuild schools, but also supporting organizations that help children heal from emotional load that they have endured.
By the Numbers — Gaza’s Commitment to Education (before & after) |
Before the devastation● Mean years of schooling (15 years old+): ~11.5 years in Gaza (2023); women slightly higher than men (♀ 11.60, ♂ 11.32). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ● Adult literacy (15 years old+): about 98% in Gaza (2023). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ● Fields of study (Palestine, ages 20–29 with diplomas/BA): Business & Administration is the largest field, with strong cohorts in Health, Education, Engineering, Law, and ICT (recent PCBS series, 2022–2025). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics+2Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics+2 ● UNRWA schools & peace curriculum: Human Rights, Conflict Resolution & Tolerance (HRCRT) program running since 1999 (non-violence, conflict resolution, rights/responsibilities). UNRWA+1 |
Destruction since late 2023● Universities in Gaza (pre-Oct 2023): 12 universities within about 17 tertiary institutions; all 12 have been struck; Al-Israa University was demolished on Jan 17, 2024. swisspeace.chLe ● K–12 school damage: As of July–Aug 2025, ~97% of Gaza’s school buildings have sustained damage; ~89% will require major repair or full reconstruction to function. ReliefWeb+11` ● Direct hits on schools: 406 school buildings (≈72% of all) recorded as “direct hit” since Oct 7, according to UNRWA (May 9, 2025). UNRWA ● Education casualties (as of Aug 12, 2025): at least 16,613 school students and 731 education staff killed; >24,730 students and 3,080 teachers injured (Palestinian MoE data collated by UN OCHA). OCHA |
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Read the data as love: this is a people budgeting life around their children’s future. |
