This professor once taught at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City. He returned to a campus in ruins

Muhammad Juma Khattab weaves his way past the line of cars, trucks and carts, waiting at a checkpoint to enter Gaza City from Netzarim Corridor. The 80-year-old professor leans slightly on a walking stick with every step he takes, his shoes worn but his face filled with determination to reach his destination.

The wrinkles in his face run deep, proof of a long life he calls his “tragic trip.” Born in 1945, the professor has seen many wars in this land, and between trips abroad for work and schooling, the changes it’s gone through. 

But today, dressed in a navy blue blazer, brown pants and a navy sweater, the pharmacy professor is making his way back to the university where he taught before the war: Al-Azhar University. 

“I came to see how they have destroyed this region,” he tells CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. He points at his backpack, filled with branches he had collected from around the remains of the school.

United Nations experts are “deeply concerned over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza,” the organization said in an April 2024 press release, referring to how Israel has destroyed educational spaces in the strip amid its war against Hamas. The office called it an “intentional effort” to destroy the Palestinian education system. And according to official Palestinian data, all 12 of Gaza’s higher education institutions have been destroyed or damaged.

In a statement to CBC News, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) called the scholasticide allegations “baseless and deeply unfounded.” At Al-Azhar University, the military said it found weapons, like rocket parts and explosives, as well as a tunnel leading to a nearby school, providing handout photos of what it claims was found on campus. It said this indicated Hamas had used the facility to attack Israeli troops.

Return to campus

The streets become more barren the closer Khattab gets to the campus. Rubble is everywhere, with the effects of the war leaving the land a grey-brown. Using his walking stick, he begins to point out what used to be various sites — now mostly ruins — on campus. 

“This is what remains from the university, only one building,” he says. It once hosted scientific conferences, he tells El Saife.

A concrete fence that once surrounded the university is now just partially standing, and has been spray-painted with Hebrew graffiti. Some of it is sports chants, others military brigade names — all possible signs of who entered the campus during the war. 

Khattab received his PhD in chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacy from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany in 1973. He says he worked in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Sudan, before returning to Gaza in 1995. And as someone who left the enclave in search of work and eventually came back, he gets visibly agitated when he remembers U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comments about taking over Gaza. 

“Please don’t believe what Trump said, we will never go out of this country,” he said. “Our roots are very deep.” 

Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders by proposing the U.S. take over Gaza, displace its population and turn it into what he called the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Under his plan, Palestinians would not have the right to return. 

The first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is nearing its end, and already there is conflict between the two sides. Over the last three weeks, Hamas has released 18 Israeli hostages, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees. That was according to their deal, brokered by Egypt and Qatar, to stop the fighting that began after Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack on Israel killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians. 

The deal appeared to be close to failure this week, when both sides accused each other of violating their agreement. Hamas said it would pause releasing hostages until Israel let more aid into Gaza; Israel said fighting in the enclave would resume if the militant group didn’t release hostages on Saturday by noon.

Then on Thursday, Hamas reaffirmed its commitment to the deal, saying three Israeli hostages would be released on Saturday as planned, though it rejected what it called the “language of threats and intimidation” from Israel and the U.S. The group cited Israel’s allowance of more aid into Gaza as its reasoning for the decision.

‘Everything is destroyed’

Empty black and white bomb canisters with labels written in Hebrew litter the ground Khattab walks on. He walks by a large pile of them and picks one up. It feels like it’s the Third World War, he says. He wonders where the contents of these containers landed and whose lives they possibly took. 

The lone, partially standing building on campus that Khattab had pointed out houses the faculties of agriculture, veterinary medicine, law and political science. As he makes his way up the steps, the sound of his walking stick against the floor echoes off the structure’s remaining walls. 

Visibly shocked, Khattab mumbles to himself as he walks through the halls he once knew. “Everything is destroyed,” he says. The walls here have also been defaced by graffiti. 

Finally, the professor walks into the building’s courtyard. The ground is completely covered by piles of bent aluminum beams, office furniture and documents. He bends over to pick up a stack of papers. They’re transcripts — signs of the life the space once had, long before the war, with marks that no longer matter to the students who received them.

“In English, they got 77 from 100, in Arabic, 85, in philosophy, 88…. Excellent, excellent marks.”