Palestinian university students from Jerusalem are struggling in unprecedented ways. Amid increasing Israeli military and legal restrictions, many Palestinians are asking themselves if they will even be able to make it to their campuses through proliferating checkpoints and roadblocks, if it is safe to leave home to begin with, if their universities will be raided by occupation forces, if their diplomas will be recognized, and if—even with their diplomas—they will be able to get jobs.

Recent Israeli legal and military developments are causing great anxiety and deepening the forced fragmentation and isolation of Jerusalemite Palestinians from their own Palestinian universities. On January 6, 2026, Israeli forces raided Birzeit University, leaving dozens of students injured. And on January 21, the Knesset passed a law banning graduates of Palestinian universities from employment in Israel’s education system (see New Law Bans Graduates from Palestinian Universities from Employment in Israel’s Education Sector).1

On January 6, 2026, around 200 Israeli soldiers with more than 20 military vehicles stormed Birzeit University while classes were in session. The campus, located eight kilometers north of Ramallah, serves nearly 13,800 students.2 “Occupying forces destroyed the University’s main gate, stormed the campus with a large number of soldiers and military vehicles, and fired live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas directly at students and members of the university community,”3 a statement released by Birzeit University explained. Forty-one were injured,4 11 of whom were hospitalized.5 Journalists and ambulances were prohibited from entering the campus.

Israel alleged that its forces invaded the university due to a planned gathering by the student unions in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. The unions had also planned to screen The Voice of Hind Rajab, a documentary film based on the brutal killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza on January 29, 2024, as she and her family were fleeing Gaza City during the war.6

In its statement, Birzeit University denounced the raid:

Israeli forces also stormed Birzeit University at dawn a month prior on December 9, 2025. Later that day, they also raided the Al-Quds University campus in Abu Dis, stationing large military vehicles between academic buildings and spreading chaos on campus.8 In its official statement at the time, Al-Quds University condemned the military invasion:

The raid came one day after the university community lit a Christmas tree on campus to usher in the holiday season.

The events at Birzeit University and Al-Quds University are part of a broader Israeli strategy of constraining Palestinian life, including—and especially—in education (see Education). Jerusalem’s Palestinian university students are uniquely impacted by these restrictions, since they must cross several checkpoints to reach their universities in Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Abu Dis, Birzeit, or elsewhere.

For example, 4,580 students at Birzeit University are from the larger Jerusalem Governorate (Muhafazat al-Quds), making up 30 percent of the university student population. Not all of them hold Israeli-issued permanent-resident IDs; many reside in areas that were cut off by the Separation Wall when it was completed more than two decades ago (see Precarious Status and The Separation Wall). At Al-Quds University, 60 percent of students are from Jerusalem and the 1948 territories, with the majority of that number being from Jerusalem.10 Palestinians from Jerusalem therefore make up a significant proportion of students in Palestinian universities, most of which are in the areas outside the municipal boundaries of the city.

The threatening conditions of studying under such a brutal and oppressive occupation leave students in chronic states of fear, stress, mental exhaustion, and vulnerability. This is compounded by sudden military incursions and closures, the rising number of checkpoints, gates, roadblocks, and fences, and invasive surveillance technologies that render what should be routine school commutes into daily traumatizing terror. Students who are already stressed about their educational and professional futures under occupation find themselves terrified by rifles and tanks aimed at them while on their way to class—that is, if they make it at all.

Besides the physical and mental burdens inflicted on Palestinian students, there is another layer that is crucial to consider. In an interview with Jerusalem Story, Nardine Mimi, a media officer at Birzeit University’s Public Relations office, stressed that Birzeit University is known for its pluralistic, diverse, inclusive, and open campus environment, and that these fundamentals are now endangered, threatening the very social fabric of Palestinian communities. Mimi pointed to this danger as it pertains to the development of a shared social fabric within Palestinian communities and stressed the importance of the diversity and democratic atmosphere that Birzeit University, in particular, offers. She added that the university has been deliberate in highlighting education that is based on pluralism, openness, respect for difference, and authentic inclusion. “When access is systematically constrained, and when a university campus is systematically attacked,” Mimi explained, “its capacity to function as a space of encounter, diversity, and intellectual exchange is drastically undermined.”11

Essentially, higher education should be a site of encounter; a place where individuals from different backgrounds get to meet, exchange knowledge and ideas, and learn through new and multidimensional experiences. A university exists not only to transmit knowledge but to also cultivate critical thinking, pluralism, and intellectual exchange through sustained encounter across difference.

This undermining is happening in real time. And with increased Israeli crackdowns on Palestinian educational institutions, university administrations are under strict surveillance. While on campus, they know that their every move and utterance is being watched and tracked by Israeli authorities, and the consequences can be severe.

Raghad Neiroukh, a medical student at Al-Quds University, shared that the university administration has recently banned any form of student political organizing or expression on campus, including sit-ins, demonstrations, or events in support of Gaza or Palestinian prisoners. “Even being affiliated with a political party is prohibited now,” Neiroukh explained. “No one is allowed to utter a word without university approval.”12

Effectively, Israel’s restrictions limit university operations to in-class instruction, severely curtailing student involvement in extracurricular activities and forms of exchange that are imperative for building well-rounded generations of educated youth. As Mimi emphasized, learning how to hear and respect political, religious, or social differences, whether in political viewpoints or socioeconomic status, among other factors, is “key to shaping an inclusive society that is open to diversity and dialogue.”

As part of its commitment to ensuring equal access to higher education, Mimi explained, Birzeit University’s mission is to bring together and educate Palestinian students from marginalized and geographically isolated areas. This includes offering scholarships to students from remoter areas like Masafer Yatta, as well as encouraging Palestinians from the 1948 areas and Jerusalem to enroll. The aim, she explained, is not only educational but also for the “cultivation of open-minded, intellectually engaged individuals shaped by diversity and mutual respect.”

With that said, Mimi stresses the dangers of Israel’s deliberate separation of students from Jerusalem from their universities in the rest of the West Bank—in addition to legislating laws banning their employment in critical sectors. This separation, she highlighted, is not only geographic but threatens to erase their individual and collective sense of Palestinian identity, memory, history, and authentic connection to the land. This further strips Jerusalem of its Palestinian Arab identity in the service of Israel’s Judaization project. Through the checkpoints, separation policies, and erasure of the people from the city, Israel seeks to strip Jerusalem of its identity and sever it from its Arab context, facilitating the imposition of a single and one-dimensional narrative that only allows for one group to dominate and claim perpetual sovereignty over the city.

Neiroukh shared that one of the most meaningful moments of cultural exchange she experienced at university was in the dorms during Ramadan iftars. Despite her family living a 20-minute car ride away, she chose to live in the dorms with girls from the West Bank and from the 1948 territories to get to know Palestinians from other areas. But, she said, “even though I always recommend university dorms for this reason, I don’t blame those who don’t choose this option.” It is becoming more unsafe to live in Abu Dis. With frequent raids, students in dorms have been woken up by teargas and gunshots penetrating their windows, and others have been unable to return to their dorms or leave campus to go home.

Since Al-Quds University’s campus is adjacent to a gate in the Separation Wall through which Israeli military forces move in and out of Abu Dis, students often choose to leave campus than stick around when Israeli forces arrive. Neiroukh said students would rather spend three hours getting home through checkpoints than risk their lives in the dorms. These realities fragment students from one other, limiting their capacity to meet and interact, depleting their energy, and distracting them from their studies and social developments with ever-present concerns for their daily safety.

Even within Israeli institutions, Palestinian students feel terrorized. As a recent article in +972 Magazine indicated, students have expressed that they have had to suppress not only their identities but also their emotions. Others have described that they wouldn’t even think to host any event in Arabic, much less one with political connotations. Something as small as an Arabic sticker on a laptop could be a “target for agitators.”13 Speaking from personal experience, Neiroukh added that Israeli occupation forces even suppress and penalize students who are natural leaders, regardless of whether they are politically engaged or outspoken.

Jerusalemite students specifically are caught between a rock and a hard place. In Israeli universities, they are suspected, marginalized, and threatened for merely being Palestinian, and in Palestinian universities, they are often unable to reach their campuses due to increasing movement restrictions and face uncertain professional futures. In this oppressive environment, Neiroukh has resorted to educating her peers at university and through her Instagram account about the pivotal historical, cultural, and social realities of Jerusalem that few non-Jerusalemites are aware of.

“Israel is afraid of the educated,” she asserted. “They want a submissive society, a fearful society, a surrendering society.” In spaces where youth are meant to shape their identities, they are penalized for exercising their instinct to belong, relate, express, and even lead.