{"id":312299,"date":"2026-01-26T12:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=312299"},"modified":"2026-01-20T05:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T05:56:50","slug":"11-wounded-in-idf-raid-on-west-bank-university-vice-president-detained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/01\/11-wounded-in-idf-raid-on-west-bank-university-vice-president-detained\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Wounded in IDF Raid on West Bank University–Vice President Detained"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 Jan 2026 – The raid at Bir Zeit University occurred during a student rally in support of Palestinian prisoners. The IDF fired live ammunition and tear gas. ‘Raids of the university have become commonplace, but this time they crossed all the lines,’ the university president said.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Israeli army raids Birzeit University, near Ramallah, West Bank, on 6 Jan 2026<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rawan Suleiman reports in\u00a0Haaretz<\/em> on 6 January 2026:<\/p>\n

Israeli security forces raided the campus of Bir Zeit University near Ramallah on Tuesday during a demonstration in support of Palestinian prisoners that was organized by the student council, the university said.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s director of public relations, Nardeen Al-Mimi, told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that the troops fired live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it provided medical treatment to 11 people at the university, five of whom were wounded by live fire and four by inhaling tear gas.<\/p>\n

The university added that, during the raid, soldiers detained Vice President of Academic Affairs Asem Khalil for questioning.<\/p>\n

Al-Mimi also told Wafa that the soldiers destroyed the university\u2019s main gate, broke into several buildings and confiscated materials belonging to student activists. University President Dr. Talal Shahwan said the soldiers arrived in around 20 vehicles. A reporter for Al-Araby television said the soldiers closed off all the entrances to the university.<\/p>\n

After the demonstration, the student council had planned to hold a premiere screening of the film \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d which tells the story of a 5-year-old who was killed in Gaza by Israeli tank fire as she waited for help, while trapped in a car with dead relatives. The university said many students had planned to attend.<\/p>\n

Dr. Marwan Ghanem, a hydrogeology professor at Birzeit, told Al-Araby that he was surprised by the raid. He said the army confiscated microphones and protest signs and raided every department in the university.<\/p>\n

Ghanem said he assumed the goal of the raid was to warn both the student union and the university administration against conducting activities that show national solidarity. A few days ago, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli security personnel had warned the university against holding such activities on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaids of the university have become commonplace, but this time, they crossed all the lines,\u201d Shahwan said at a press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the raids is to prevent the university from doing its job and fulfilling its educational, social and human obligations,\u201d and thereby to \u201cmake the nation ignorant, control the way the nation thinks and steer it according to the occupation\u2019s goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Education Ministry denounced the raid and said it grossly violated the international consensus about protecting educational institutions. It urged the International Association of Universities, the Association of Arab Universities and international human rights organizations to intervene by taking a strong stand against such raids.<\/p>\n

In response, the IDF said that \u201cOver the past few days, intelligence indications arose about a gathering in support of terrorism that was supposed to take place today on the grounds of Birzeit University, under the Binyamin Brigade jurisdiction,\u201d referring to the military unit in the area. \u201cWhen the gathering began, IDF forces and troops from the Border Police rushed into the university grounds, used crowd-control methods, fired into the air only and dispersed the gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLater, another violent disturbance developed, with hundreds of participants. It included throwing rocks and boulders from roofs on the [university] grounds at the forces in a manner that constituted an immediate threat to them. The forces responded with crowd-dispersal tactics and fire directed at key violent instigators. The IDF will continue to act decisively and will not permit terror incitement against Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist or not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people. We support the right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel\u2019s 1967 borders. We work to build worldwide Jewish opposition to the Israeli Occupation, with like-minded groups around the world and are a founding member of <\/em>European Jews for a Just Peace<\/em>, a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 jfjfp.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Jan 2026 – The raid at Bir Zeit University occurred during a student rally in support of Palestinian prisoners. The IDF fired live ammunition and tear gas. ‘Raids of the university have become commonplace, but this time they crossed all the lines,’ the university president said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":285660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[417,3264,88,2416,427,718,2159,1025],"class_list":["post-312299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-bullying","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-palestine","tag-resistance","tag-rogue-states","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312299"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312308,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312299\/revisions\/312308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}