Al-Azhar University, Gaza President Brings Gaza’s Call for Academic Partnership to EAIE Glasgow 2026
Speaking on behalf of Gaza’s non-profit universities, Dr Omar Melad, President of Al-Azhar University, Gaza, addressed international higher education leaders at the European Association of International Education (EAIE) President’s Reception which opened the Association’s annual conference and exhibition in Glasgow on 8 September.
One of Europe’s largest gatherings of the international higher education community, the EAIE Conference and Exhibition brings together universities and higher education professionals from around the world to build partnerships, exchange ideas and strengthen international cooperation.
Extending a warm welcome to Dr Melad, EAIE President Sara López Selga emphasised the importance of supporting the capacity of higher education communities at risk and reiterated the EAIE’s commitment to Palestinian academic participation in the week’s events.
Dr Omar Melad opened his remarks by saying he was humbled to be speaking not only as President of Al-Azhar University–Gaza, but also on behalf of his fellow university presidents, Dr Asad Asad, President of the Islamic University of Gaza, and Dr Ayman Sobh, President of Al-Aqsa University–Gaza, who were unable to travel and remain in Gaza and Jordan respectively. He went on to describe a higher education sector in which every university has been destroyed or severely damaged, and students, academics and staff have been killed and displaced.
But he also emphasised what Gaza’s universities have continued to sustain. Universities are teaching, holding examinations and graduating students through displacement. At Al-Azhar University alone, more than 300 doctors have graduated since October 2023. the systematic destruction faced by the higher education sector in Gaza by Israel.
He stressed that the destruction of campuses has not meant the destruction of Palestinian academic life.
“A university is not a building. It is a community: people committed to knowledge, to preserving the past, imagining the future, to international exchange and cooperation, and to passing something precious from one generation to the next.”
“I have not come here only to tell you what has been destroyed. I have come to tell you what has survived.”
Describing this continued defence of Palestinian academic life as sumūd — steadfastness, Dr Melad warned that resilience cannot become a substitute for international action.
“Our resilience cannot become an excuse for the world to leave us to survive alone. You have a duty to act too.”
Dr Melad called for concrete international support through formal institutional partnerships, research collaboration, joint programmes, virtual fellowships and research funding for Palestinian academics and institutions. He reiterated a central principle set out by Gaza’s academic community and the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza: efforts to rebuild higher education must strengthen Gaza’s existing universities, not bypass or replace them.
“We ask you to stand alongside us: to defend the right of Palestinians to educate ourselves, in our own institutions; to help us preserve the intellectual life that destruction has sought to extinguish; and to support us in rebuilding a future for our students on our own Palestinian land in Gaza.”
Dr Melad’s address set the tone for a week in which Palestinian universities will engage directly with institutions from across Europe and beyond. This year, Friends of Palestinian Universities (FPU) is hosting a delegation of representatives from Palestinian universities at the conference, supporting their participation in meetings and events throughout the week. FPU is also hosting a Palestinian universities booth in the conference exhibition, providing a dedicated space for Palestinian institutions to meet international partners, share their work and develop new institutional relationships.
Through its delegation and exhibition presence, FPU is working to turn that engagement into long-term partnerships that strengthen Palestinian universities, expand opportunities for students and academics, and support Palestinian-led efforts to sustain and rebuild higher education in Gaza.
