Students in Syria’s Idlib Protest Closure of Universities

FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
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Students in Syria’s Idlib Protest Closure of Universities

FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo

In Syria's Idlib province, Mudar Darwish and fellow medical students clutched banners and chanted against the closure of their university.

"Our future is being wasted because of unfair decisions against our university," Darwish told the crowd gathered in the northwestern region.

"We won't allow it," said the 28-year-old, who has been protesting against the closure of his university in the town of Maaret al-Noman.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has closed down a dozen universities since January, in a bid to bring them under its control.

It has come under increased criticism in recent weeks after shutting down a series of universities in its stronghold.

The so-called Salvation Government, an HTS-dominated body administering Idlib and its capital, said the move serves to regulate higher education.

The degrees offered by Idlib's universities, including the Maaret al-Noman university, are not recognized abroad, but they can facilitate employment within the province.

Darwish said the closure of the Maaret al-Noman university will deal a blow to "the future of 1,700 students".

The 28-year-old student suggested the administration in Idlib was trying to turn the universities into a cash cow.

"We used to pay a tuition of no more than $300 and we can't afford to pay $1,800 for universities" accredited by HTS, he told Agence France Presse.

Reda Omari, a 23-year-old nursing student, expressed a similar sentiment.

"The Government of Salvation's universities are commercial enterprises," said the young man.

"They're just 'uni for money'," he said.

After two weeks of rallies in Maaret al-Noman, students moved their protest to Idlib city, where they gathered around the so-called Council of Higher Education, a body linked to the Salvation Government.

They raised banners, chanted slogans against the council's president and blocked access to its main headquarters.

After the first rally, HTS erected checkpoints to prevent more students from Maaret al-Noman and the nearby town of Ariha from joining demonstrations.

They threatened to arrest students if demonstrators did not disperse.

Majdi al-Husni, the head of the Council of Higher Education, said he understands why students are angry but stressed the need for uniformity across Idlib's educational sector.

He said the council aims to "supervise" the educational sector and harmonize the curriculum to ensure "quality education" in regions controlled by HTS.

"University programs don't have to be 100 percent identical, but there has to be some consensus," he told AFP.

He said the Salvation Government has granted accreditation to only eight universities. 

"There are more than 13 educational institutions operating without the oversight of the Council of Higher Education... on a territory of barely 10,000 square kilometers", Husni added.

"This reflects badly on the reputation of higher education in the region," he said.

Protests in Maaret al-Noman have largely fizzled out in recent days but students and teachers continued to express anger at HTS.

In a sign of defiance, staff members at the faculty of medicine at the Maaret al-Noman university started teaching on the street outside campus.

Photos shared on social media networks showed students sitting in rows on plastic chairs, facing a white-haired man dressed in a medical gown.

The instructor used the sidewalk as a podium. Behind him, the university's facade is visible.

Heavy regime shelling on the town, however, has disrupted these open-air classes.

Since September, Idlib has been protected from a massive regime offensives by a ceasefire deal brokered by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey.

But sporadic regime bombardment has continued to hit the region, and hundreds of missiles have rained down on Maaret al-Noman in recent weeks.

With the closure of the university, "many young people will give up their studies to stay at home or look for work," fellow student Mohammed al-Shahud said.

"Our future is being thrown away," he said.



Israel Says It Will Keep Troops in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria Indefinitely. What Does that Mean?

Israeli soldiers gather next to a military post on the border with Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers gather next to a military post on the border with Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Israel Says It Will Keep Troops in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria Indefinitely. What Does that Mean?

Israeli soldiers gather next to a military post on the border with Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers gather next to a military post on the border with Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

The Israeli defense minister says his country's troops will stay in “security zones” in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely, after Israel unilaterally expanded its frontiers in the war unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel says it needs to hold on to the zones to prevent similar attacks, but the takeovers appear to meet the dictionary definition of military occupation, The Associated Press said.

The acquisition of territory by force is universally seen as a violation of international law, something Western allies of Israel have repeatedly invoked with regard to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Israel, which has captured territory during wars with its Arab neighbors going back to the country's establishment in 1948, says this is a special case. For decades, Israeli governments said they must hold such lands for self-defense but would return them in peace agreements, as when Israel restored the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in the Camp David Accords.

Israel has formally annexed east Jerusalem, as well as the Golan Heights captured from Syria. It has occupied the West Bank, home to some 3 million Palestinians, for more than half a century and built settlements there that today house more than 500,000 Jewish settlers.

Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but imposed a blockade, along with Egypt, after Hamas took power two years later.

In a statement Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli troops would remain in the so-called security zones in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon “in any temporary or permanent situation.”

What are the ‘security zones’?

Israel launched a massive offensive after the 2023 attack and carved out a wide buffer zone along the border. Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas last month and has since expanded the buffer zone, established corridors across the strip and encircled the southern city of Rafah.

Israel now controls over 50% of Gaza, according to experts. Katz did not specify which territories he was referring to.

Israel was supposed to withdraw from Lebanon under the ceasefire it reached with the Hezbollah militant group in November after more than a year of fighting. But troops have remained in five strategic locations along the border and have continued to carry out strikes against what Israel says are militant targets.

When opposition factions overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad in December, Israeli forces advanced from the Golan Heights into the Syrian side of a buffer zone established after the 1973 war. Israel has since expanded its zone of control to nearby villages, setting off clashes with residents last month.

Israel has also repeatedly bombed Syrian military bases and other targets, and has said it will not allow Syrian security forces to operate south of Damascus.

How have Israel's neighbors responded?

Lebanon and Syria have condemned Israel's seizure of their territory as a blatant violation of their sovereignty and of international law. But neither country's armed forces are capable of defending their borders against Israel.

Hezbollah, which was established during the early years of Israel's 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon, has threatened to renew hostilities if Israel does not complete its withdrawal, but its military capabilities have been severely depleted by the war and the fall of Assad, who had been a close ally.

While Hezbollah seems unlikely to return to war, an ongoing Israeli occupation could complicate Lebanese efforts to negotiate the group's disarmament.

The Palestinians seek an independent state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. A two-state solution is widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the conflict, but the last serious peace talks broke down more than 15 years ago.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages held in Gaza — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and a lasting ceasefire. Israel's vow to remain in Gaza could further complicate slow-moving talks on a new ceasefire.

What is the Trump administration's position?

The United States has not yet commented on Katz's remarks.

But the Trump administration has expressed full support for Israel's actions in Gaza, including its decision to end the ceasefire, renew military operations with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds of people, and seal off the territory from all food, fuel or other supplies.

During his first term, President Donald Trump gave unprecedented support to Israel's acquisition of territory by force, at times upending decades of US foreign policy.

Under Trump, the US became the first and so far only state to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. Trump also relocated the US Embassy to Jerusalem, lending support to Israel's claims to the entire city. Both policies continued under the Biden administration.

Trump has proposed that the US take ownership of Gaza after the war and redevelop it as a tourist destination. He has called for the Palestinian population to be resettled in other countries, a plan that has been rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to implement the plan after Hamas is defeated, saying Israel supports the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from a territory it largely controls, much of which has been rendered uninhabitable by its offensive.