Her name is Dina, and she was murdered

Emily Writes

10 Jun 2026 — 4 min read

The sunset we share.

To kill a teacher as she leaves school is a horrific crime. And yet, you are unlikely to see anyone talking about Dina's murder.

Here, we will always talk about the crimes ignored by the world's media.

Here is Dina's story.

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Dina Al-Madhoun carried no weapons.

She was not stationed at a military outpost, nor was she engaged in any activity other than fulfilling a deeply humanitarian mission. She set out each day to manage a makeshift school in western Gaza. It was a sanctuary where teachers desperately attempted to salvage childhoods from the rubble of war.

It was in this place that Dina and her fellow educators tried to heal the scars of fear and trauma and restore a fragile sense of life to their young souls.

Yesterday, Dina returned home in a shroud. She was killed in a targeted strike. She was 31 years old.

Dina’s murder is not an isolated incident. It is a tragic new chapter in a long, ongoing campaign targeting Palestinian education in Gaza.

In this enclave, schools have been transformed first into overcrowded shelters, then into piles of ash and debris.

Teachers have become targets.

The simple act of seeking a classroom has turned into a perilous gamble that too often ends in death.

The killing of a teacher is never just the loss of a single life - it is the assassination of dozens of dreams carefully nurtured every day within the minds of children.

In Gaza, an educator is no longer merely a conduit of knowledge. They have been forced to become psychologists, counsellors, and guardians for children who have lost their parents, their homes, and their security.

To target them is to directly assault the Palestinian community’s inherent capacity for resilience and future recovery.

Dina tried to save children, and she did. She established her school to compensate Gaza's children for the theft of their schooling, at a time when an entire generation is being forced to grow up in unimaginable conditions.

While the world debated the abstract right of children to education, she was actively rendering that right tangible amidst the tents and devastation.

Ultimately, she paid for that devotion with her life.

The war on Gaza has never been content with merely flattening physical infrastructure. It purposefully extends to the human beings who carry the torch of education in a place where education is everything.

When principals, teachers, and academic counsellors are systematically killed, the underlying message is unmistakable. The objective is not just to demolish schools, but to hollow out society by striking at its consciousness and its future.

Education remains the most potent tool for Palestinian survival. It is the fortress safeguarding national identity and collective memory.

Yet, despite the immense peril, Palestinian educators refuse to abandon their duty.

They have raised classrooms from the dust within tent encampments, written on makeshift wooden boards, and sat with children upon the bare sand.

They have committed to the idea that while an occupation can demolish concrete walls, it can never crush the will to learn.

Dina’s martyrdom stands as a stark testament to the staggering sacrifices borne by education workers, who perform a purely humanitarian duty entirely divorced from any military activity.

The systematic targeting of educators and educational institutions constitutes a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law, which explicitly mandates special protections for civilians, schools, and educators.

What is unfolding in Gaza, however, reveals that these protections have been reduced to mere ink on paper, as teachers and students continue to fall with absolute impunity.

Dina Al-Madhoun has departed, but she leaves behind a legacy far grander than her years.

It is a legacy declaring that the Palestinian teacher holds nothing but a pen, yet stands prepared to pay the ultimate price so that a Palestinian child may cling to their right to learn.

Dina remains an eternal witness to the fact that the war on Gaza does not merely target flesh and bone, it targets intellect, memory, and tomorrow.

To kill a teacher is a calculated attempt to break the spirit of a nation through its next generation.

May peace rest upon the soul of the martyr Dina Al-Madhoun, and upon every teacher who ascended while fulfilling their sacred mission.

Let Palestinian education forever remain a monument of resilience, no matter how fierce the bombardment, and no matter how brutally the war attempts to extinguish the light of knowledge.

By Dr Jehad Malaka with support from Emily Writes.