Witnessing scholasticide in Gaza: A conversation forum

This conversation forum centres on Lubna Abu Sitta’s eyewitness account of scholasticide in Gaza, one of the first such testimonies to appear in an academic journal. Writing as a geographer from Al-Aqsa University under conditions of violent occupation, Abu Sitta documents the killing of geography professors and students, the destruction of educational spaces, and the intimate experience of studying amid devastation. In doing so, her testimony not only evidences scholasticide but also raises the possibility of what this introduction cautiously terms geographicide : the destruction of geographers, geographical knowledge, and places of geographical learning. Her intervention challenges the coloniality of knowledge production by insisting on the importance of Palestinian testimony and memory in the face of erasure. Five geographers—Zena Agha, Mark Griffiths, Nicole Printy Currie, Mikko Joronen, and Khalid Dader—respond across three commentaries, reflecting on the implications of scholasticide for geography as a discipline, for universities, and for broader struggles over knowledge and justice. Together, the contributions consider both the silences and responsibilities of the global academic community and cautiously affirm geography’s potential as a practice of resistance.