In the heart of a cemetery in Khan Yunis, Dr Raghad Hamad, an academic at Al-Aqsa University, lay on the cold ground with her family. She fled northern Gaza to escape Israel’s bombing, only to find herself among the graves, trying to turn a concrete wall into a shelter and the open sky into a roof that would protect her children from fear.

She hugged her children and hid there trembling, as if she wanted to convince them that life is possible even in the presence of death. Her scene was not just a fleeting moment, but a painting that encapsulates deep human suffering, where the search for safety becomes a daily battle and the right to shelter becomes an unattainable dream.

Gaza’s educide: life alongside death

The cemetery was not just a place to sleep, but a harsh symbol of the paradox of Gaza. When the living find their only refuge among the dead, death itself becomes a refuge from a harsher life. The image of Raghad and her family among the gravestones has become a symbol of a life under siege, embracing death in order to survive.

It is a moment where symbolism and reality merge, where the living become neighbors of the dead, and where death becomes more merciful than displacement in the open. This scene encapsulates the meaning of the place: Gaza, searching for life, finds itself forced to share it with the dead.

University halls: now the graveyards of Gaza’s minds

Raghad was not just a displaced person; she was a university professor with advanced degrees who had dedicated her life to building minds and graduating new generations. Today, she sits on the soil of cemeteries instead of university halls, and embraces her children instead of her students. The irony here is even more painful. The guardians of knowledge have become refugees searching for the most basic necessities of survival.

This loss is not hers alone, but represents the collapse of an entire society. When the academic and medical elite are displaced, the future is shattered. Future generations are robbed of their right to education, health, and knowledge. The tragedy of Gaza does not stop at human beings, but extends to the loss of human knowledge, which is the cornerstone of any renaissance.

A cry that sums up the story

We found no home and no tent; all we have left are graves.

With this short sentence, Raghad summed up her story. Her few words conveyed what dozens of reports could not: a muffled cry that sums up the journey of displacement and betrayal. It transformed her individual experience into a collective testimony to the magnitude of the tragedy.

From lecture halls to graveyards, the distance between knowledge and death was reduced to a single moment. Here, the story needs no exaggeration or embellishment. It suffices to be told as it is, to serve as irrefutable evidence of the cruelty of war and silent testimony to the pain of an entire nation.

Human knowledge buried under the rubble

Dr. Raghad’s story does not stop at the borders of Gaza, but goes beyond them to pose a question to the world: how can knowledge live among the dead? When academia is displaced to the graveyards, the loss is not only to a besieged society, but to all of humanity, which sees human knowledge buried alive under the rubble.

This is not just a story of displacement, but a mirror of the fate of minds in conflict zones. Raghad’s story has become a global cry against the death of education and the displacement of talent, and against a future stolen from the hands of children and students. It is a testimony that exposes the world’s silence and confronts it with the truth: Gaza is not only losing its homes, but also its minds.

Feature image via Middle East Eye/Youtube.

By Alaa Shamali

This post was originally published on Canary.