‘Everything’s come to a halt’: Israel-Hamas war stops research

Most research in Israel has stopped as the country switches to a war footing, with 360,000 army reservists called up and half of international staff at some universities evacuating. 

Israeli research universities have twice delayed the start of the academic year to 5 November following prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration of war in response to deadly attacks by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas, and now face more disruption as the ongoing violence escalates.

“If you want the long-term effect of the war on research, we don’t know yet, we don’t know how long it’s going to take. But right now everything’s come to a halt,” David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, told Times Higher Education.

Israel has long led the world in the amount it spends on research and development, topping the OECD in investment at 5.5 per cent of GDP. The Israeli Science Foundation, the country’s main funder for basic research, has suspended its grant calls.

Professor Harel said the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he leads a computer science laboratory, was empty, with those staff not pulled into the war effort free to work remotely. He described empty streets on his usually two-hour drive to the institute in the central city of Rehovot. 

Israelis aged between 18 and 51 can be called up to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces, with most having done two or three years of compulsory service. 

Ron Robin, president of the University of Haifa, said he expected around half of international faculty, staff and students at the university to have left by mid-October, following the advice of their embassies. “In some labs we have skeleton crews. You have to improvise,” he said. 

Professor Harel said some labs are searching for staff to keep them going in the short term. “If I had a wet lab in which some important and expensive experiment were taking place, I would probably make a few calls to some of the people and ask one of them if they are willing to spend a few hours in the lab, and if they say ‘no I have to stay home with my kids I’m afraid’, then no.” 

At least 1,200 Israelis and 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing violence, according to the Reuters news agency, which began when Hamas gunmen burst into Israel, triggering retaliatory air strikes and a “total siege” of the coastal enclave. 

With thousands killed, injured and driven from their homes, academic work will likely be far from most researchers’ minds. Professor Harel said that groups like Academia Protest, set up to oppose constitutional changes by Mr Netanyahu’s government, “have turned their attention and energies in a wonderful way to help the war cause”. 

Professor Robin said Israel’s research universities were arranging buses to shuttle students between campuses if one of their sites had to be evacuated due to the war. Milette Shamir, vice-president international at Tel Aviv University, said about half the university’s international students were planning to stay on, with others leaving and some not travelling to Israel for the start of the academic year.

Media have reported international students from Nepal and Cambodia have been killed in the violence, with others from Tanzania reported missing.

The Islamic University in Gaza said on its Facebook page on 10 October that some of its buildings had suffered “major damage” from Israeli air strikes. It had suspended administration and teaching when Hamas’ attacks on Israel began two days earlier. 

Discussion of the war and its context and causes have led to confrontations on campuses abroad, with a pro-Palestinian statement from Harvard University student organisations drawing condemnation, and widespread anger elsewhere between students, faculty, donors and lawmakers over attitudes toward Palestinians. 

In separate letters to the leaders of Harvard and Stanford University, Asher Cohen, the president of the Hebrew University, said their own statements on the war “[do] not meet the most minimal standards of moral leadership, courage, and commitment to truth”.

Four students at Haifa have been suspended for posting statements supportive of Hamas’ attacks on their private social media accounts. “We have a fragile student body of Arabs and Jews,” said Haifa’s Professor Robin. “It is unacceptable that people can support in any form or fashion this unspeakable way of waging war,” he added. 

“There are limits to freedom of speech,” he said. The students would go through a formal disciplinary process within a week, which could result in their suspension being reversed, extended or made permanent. 

In an 11 October statement the Association of University Heads, which represents nine Israeli research universities, said the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians near the Gazan border should not be seen as “‘one more event’ in the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians”. 

“We have heard of initiatives undertaken by faculty and students on some campuses in countries outside of Israel to support Hamas and Islamic Jihad actions, and we understand that there has not always been a clear response from academic leadership to such signs of support,” the presidents said. 

“We hope that you will agree with us that there can be no support for such terror organizations in Western democratic societies.”

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com