For Rania Washaha, 47, the destruction brought back the pain of losing her brother Fadi, 34, who was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier near the northern entrance to el-Bireh in May 2021. His name was among the 38 inscribed on the monument.
The university's administration condemned the raid, describing the destruction of the monument as a violation of international law and an attack on education and national memory. 'Bulldozers won't erase the memory of the martyrs, military vehicles won't extinguish the light of knowledge, and these assaults won't break the university's resolve to pursue its academic and national mission,' the university said in a statement.
University media officer Nardeen al-Memi told Al Jazeera that soldiers had photographed the monument during a daytime incursion 10 days earlier, conducted a day before the start of the new fall semester. The Martyrs' Monument was erected between 1994 and 1996, bearing names of students and alumni killed by Israeli forces, starting with Sharaf al-Tayyibi, killed on campus in 1984, and ending with Omar al-Naasan, killed in September.