Science Amid Atrocity: Rethinking Collaboration in Times of War
As of 17th of September 2025
64 964 Palestinians Killed, 165 312 Palestinians Wounded, 9 000 Palestinians Missing
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast
cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood
spilled by all those generals and emperors so
that, in glory and triumph, they could become
the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Think of the endless cruelties visited by the
inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the
scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some
other corner, how frequent their
misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill
one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged
position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely
speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no
hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
-Carl Sagan
Summary
The destruction of Gaza has not only cost countless civilian lives, it has also erased entire universities, laboratories, and libraries. Palestinian scientists and students, already facing decades of isolation, are now left with no institutions to return to. The death of Prof. Sufian Tayeh , president of the Islamic University of Gaza and a respected physicist, symbolizes the silencing of a generation of researchers.
Meanwhile, global institutions such as American universities, CERN, and the Max Planck Society continue collaborations with Israel, ignoring that Palestinian contributions to physics, from Birzeit’s graduate programs to the Palestine Academy of Science and Technology, are being systematically erased. This selective blindness normalizes a science that integrates one side fully while destroying the other.
As astrophysicists, we cannot separate collaboration from responsibility. To call for a ceasefire and the suspension of ties with institutions complicit in violence is not only a moral stance — it is a scientific necessity. A science that excludes justice cannot claim to be universal.
The ongoing devastation in Gaza has led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Entire families, communities, and universities have been destroyed. Thousands of civilians including students, teachers, and children have been killed. For the Palestinian scientific community, already fragile under decades of occupation, the bombardment has meant the erasure of laboratories, the silencing of classrooms, and the forced exile of intellectual life.
As astrophysicists, we are trained to study phenomena of enormous energy and scale, but we cannot remain silent when real human catastrophes unfold on Earth. Science is not immune from politics. The values of inquiry, cooperation, and truth-seeking require an ethical foundation: without justice, science risks becoming a tool of power rather than a collective pursuit of knowledge.
Israel has established itself as a significant actor in global astrophysics, contributing to space missions, high-energy astrophysics, and international collaborations. Yet these achievements stand in stark contradiction with the systemic destruction of Palestinian lives and institutions. The reality is that there are no comparable platforms for Palestinian researchers; their contributions are routinely excluded, their institutions underfunded or bombed, and their access to international networks blocked.
Palestinian contributions to physics exist, but they have been persistently marginalized:
- The Islamic University of Gaza, once home to active programs in physics and engineering, was bombed on October 10–11, 2023, destroying core facilities and libraries (Scholars at Risk, 2023). Its president, physicist Prof. Sufian Tayeh, a respected researcher in optics, was killed with his family in December 2023 (POMEPS, 2023).
- Birzeit University in the West Bank has cultivated graduate education in physics and mathematics. In 2017, it hosted the Palestinian Advanced Physics School (PAPS), gathering over 50 master’s students for lectures on cosmology, SESAME accelerator physics, and quantum theory (WAFA, 2017). Yet its community faces travel bans, raids, and academic isolation (Birzeit University).
- The Palestine Academy for Science and Technology has struggled to maintain international partnerships under occupation, despite efforts to connect Palestinian researchers with global collaborations (PAST).
The contrast is devastating: while one side launches satellites and secures major roles in observatories, the other struggles to keep electricity running long enough to complete a thesis. The destruction of these institutions represents not only a local tragedy but an impoverishment of global science. Talent is not confined by borders, but opportunity can be destroyed by bombs.
And yet, international scientific institutions remain complicit by their silence or active collaboration. Leading American universities continue to host joint projects with Israeli institutions (Columbia–Tel Aviv Exchange). CERN has maintained Israel’s privileged status as a full member state (CERN Member States), even while Palestinian universities are reduced to rubble. The Max Planck Society highlights Israeli collaborations on its official pages (MPI Israel cooperation) while ignoring the obliteration of Palestinian academic life. This selective blindness normalizes a situation in which one side of the conflict is fully integrated into global science, while the other is deliberately erased.
We must confront this imbalance. Collaboration cannot be separated from responsibility. Continuing “business as usual” with institutions complicit in war crimes legitimizes the silencing of an entire people. To call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire is not only a moral obligation, it is a scientific one, because science that excludes justice is incomplete.
The astrophysics community must take a stand: pause collaborations with institutions involved in systemic violence, amplify Palestinian voices, and demand space for their contributions in our field. Only then can we claim to live up to the universalism we so often invoke when we speak of the cosmos.
Written by Edna Ruiz. Some parts of this text were formatted with ChatGPT to improve clarity.