The Israeli army assassinated a Palestinians student from An-Najah University and early on the morning of 24 / 06 / 2008.

I am currently staying five minutes away from where this atrocity took place – in the Al-Sal’ous neighborhood in the Al-Makhfiyeh area of western Nablus.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Israeli offensive forces were carrying out one of its many illegal incursions into the city of Nablus where upon they ruthlessly killed, in cold blood 2 Palestinians, one of whom was 24-year-old Iyad Khanfar, a final-year student at An-Najah. We had the opportunity of visiting the apartment soon after and it was laced with blood, broken glass and bullets. The apartment had been
ransacked and torn apart by explosions used to instill life threatening fear in these innocent palestinians. Several matching reports say that one, a student, was filled
with 16 bullets to the chest whilst in bed.

The university is (was) on general strike with all classes cancelled and the local volunteers on my program were shocked as was I.

This is by now means an isolated incident and is common practice for the apartheid forces. We pray for their families.

T.C

Two students from the University of Manchester were not able to reach An-Najah their twin university in the West Bank due to the city being under siege, curfew, and attack from the Israeli army.

The students were in the west bank on a family visit, and agreed to visit an-Najah for the purpose of collecting important documents for the UMSU. However for the duration of their visit, the city of Nablus was under incursions from the Israeli army, to the damage of 40 million Israeli shekels, and the injury of 38 civilians including 2 disabled civilians and medical staff.

The students had arranged with the staff of the university and the students’ council to visit the university but every time they tried to travel from Bethlehem to Nablus (around 50miles) they were turned away by Israeli checkpoints around the Nablus.

Also, the journey, straight from Bethlehem to Nablus should take no more than one and a half hours. However, due to the status of the Manchester students, they were not allowed to go through Jerusalem, so the detour including waiting at the Israeli checkpoints took them up to four hours each time.

Palestinian students from An-Najah were clearly disappointed the visit was not allowed to happen when he said: “I was looking forward to meeting students from UMSU, the support we had from them is amazing, but it’s different when it’s face to face.”

Rana Batarseh, from UMSU was equally disappointed, “I guess this is why we choose to twin with a Palestinian university, the travel restrictions are collective punishment embossed on a whole people, they don’t allow a normal life to go on, we had been looking forward to this visit for a long time, I really hope, these the conditions change for the sake of the people who are living here. I was also shocked to hear that students from An Najah university were illegally detained by the Israeli army during the incursion without charge, and to this day haven’t been charged. I really think that UMSU should do something to support these students, who add to the 56 already being tortured in Israeli jails.”

The twinning between UMSU and An Najah University began after the motion to twin the two institutions was passed at the March 2006 General Meeting. Since then the two institutions have hosted shared events. The twinning has ignited many a debate on campus surrounding the situation in Palestine and has faced some opposition yet many students support this link and also defended this twinning at Nov 14th General Meeting 2007.

Dr Nabil’s thoughts on the invasion “The invasion happened at a time when the governor of Nablus was able to restore order to the City by collecting arms from all armed men who roamed the streets of Nablus. The invasion disturbed the students who live in the City away from their families after commuting has become impossible because of the atrocities and harassments they are exposed to at the roadblocks. The invasion increases frustrations among the young population of university students, who were anticipating an ease up of the situation after Annapolis only to face a new wave of unjustified harassment. The Israelis always like to abort all attempts made at improving the Palestinian conditions under the pretext of Security. Palestinian young men are aware of the fact that detaining, humiliating and killing helpless young men will certainly not help in promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli acts of violence against Palestinians aim at evacuating Palestinian young from their land after driving them to the limits of despair. The invasion renewed scenes of bloodshed in the street of Nablus; one Palestinian young man was shot in the head on his way to the Friday prayer right in front of The Old Campus of An-Najah National University. The killed man was a father of two young children and the Israeli soldiers admitted killing him by mistake. During the incursion, the University was closed for three days, and several young people were arrested.

Nabil Alawi, Ph.D., Director, Public Relations Department

19 year old second year Business Administration student of An Najah National University.

Times are hard – this is the only thing I can say about the current situation in Palestine.

For me, being a student at An Najah University is a privilege. It is a rich academic and social experience. An Najah is the largest of the 11 Palestinian universities. In this academic year, it covers the needs of over 16,000 students from all over the West Bank.

But there exists this awkward little fact. An Najah is located in the West Bank city of Nablus which is completely surrounded by Israeli occupation forces. Every road leading out of Nablus is controlled by Israeli soldiers – some call it a siege. This means the movement of students, including myself, is interrupted, delayed and sometimes completely prevented.

There are about 10,000 students who travel into Nablus everyday from nearby towns and villages, and they have to show their ID, empty their bags, prove who they are looking down the barrel of a gun – just to go to classes. This is not an international border – it is the occupied West Bank.

For me, I live just 7km from Nablus. Or at least I used to. Before the circle of checkpoints closed in, I could reach Nablus in 10 minutes taking the direct road over the hill. This road has been closed by the Israeli occupation force, and now my journey takes me on a big detour of 25km. It now takes 45 minutes on a good day, but usually it takes at least two hours. It used to cost 3 shekels, now it costs 12 shekels.

Now – I was given the honour to speak on behalf of my fellow students, so it is my duty to speak their thoughts. I know for a fact that the two biggest problems we share are -

Transport difficulties – if we could, we would all live in Nablus to avoid the checkpoints. But we can’t. There aren’t dormitories, and anyway, we couldn’t afford it.

Which brings me to the second problem, the occupation generally and the Nablus blockade specifically is making us poorer and poorer. It is getting harder for our families to support us through university.

This is our situation. We don’t want to be pitied, we just want the outside world to know about our situation, to understand our side of the story, to see what it is like. Twinning with your university will bring us closer to your experience – it will show us even more the freedom we lack, but it will also bring you closer to our experience.

I look forward to our future conversations and comparisons.

This article is from the students news paper (student direct)

This Wednesday 7th March the AGM will be discussing a proposal to twin with the Palestinian Al-Najah University which in located in the West Bank city of Nablus, within the ‘Occupied Territories’. We will also be discussing affiliation to the Right to Education campaign to support students, teachers and education in Palestine.

Students at Al-Najah University have to endure unbearable difficulties due to the Israeli Occupation and the repressive measures that the Israeli authorities enforce. Historically, the Israeli Occupation has declared education for Palestinians illegal (1988) and the measures taken by the same authorities in the last few years have made the right to education in Palestine “unofficially illegal” (in the words of one UN commentator).

Having done a course at Al-Najah University and having spent a considerable amount of time on both the main campus in the city of Nablus and the Faculty of Agriculture (Khadouri Campus) in Tulkarem, I feel such a move would have an amazing impact on the morale of the students on campus. All Palestinians, but especially students, feel isolated – they feel let down by a world that seems to care nothing about the Occupation, the nakbah (the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948) and the plight of Palestinian refugees. This feeling of abandonment can be lessened by the twinning motion as it shows there are people out there that care about our plight. Personally I would have loved to have studied in an Al-Najah University which is twinned with a big university abroad and therefore with a smaller feeling of alienation.

I urge every student who is able to be there for the General Meeting on Wednesday March 7th at 1.30pm to come and support the twinning motion – a simple but important step in which you can have a real positive impact on situation.

Mohammed Habash
A student at Al-Najah University (Khadouri Campus).