IDF vehicles at the entrance to the Birzeit University campus north of Ramallah at night on 21 September 2025
Rawan Suleiman, Matan Golan and Jack Khoury report in Haaretz on 22 September 2025:
The Israeli army raided the campus of Birzeit University, north of Ramallah in the West Bank, on Sunday night [21 September], according to statements from the university.
Reports indicate that Israeli forces arrested campus security personnel, tied them up, and wounded two, who were later taken to a hospital for treatment.
IDF soldiers also damaged university property and distributed threatening leaflets to students and staff. One leaflet, a photo of which was posted on Radio Al-Alam’s Facebook page, stated that “[student] organizations’ activity is terrorist activity” and warned that participation in such activities could endanger students’ futures.
At the same time, Palestinian media reported that Mustafa Shawar, head of the Palestinian Scientists’ Council and a lecturer at Hebron University, was arrested at his home in Hebron.
The Dean of Student Affairs at Birzeit, Ghassan Barghouti, told Al-Alam Radio that 11 military vehicles broke into the campus after midnight. He said the forces raided several buildings on the campus, focusing on the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Theater. The dean said the force defaced murals on the campus that showed the destruction in the Gaza Strip, and damaged other objects.
The university’s vice president, Yasser Amori, told Qatari Al-Arabi TV and other Palestinian media outlets that this was the third raid on the campus since the start of the war. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the raids on the campus occur frequently, and include arrests of members of the academic community, assaults on staff, vandalism of property, and confiscation of equipment.
Birzeit University called on academic and legal institutions around the world to intervene. “The raid is not a passing event, but a continuation of an organized policy aimed at harming Palestinian institutions of higher education, against the backdrop of the continuing onslaught of destruction in the Gaza Strip and the escalation of violence in the West Bank,” it said.
The IDF did not provide a comment.
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