How students and academics are keeping hope alive in Gaza: A graduate student writes
Today more than ever, education is our only hope.
A year ago, students preparing assignments and university projects for their midterms couldn’t have anticipated that their universities would be burned, destroyed, and converted into interrogation centers. They could not have foreseen that their teachers and peers would be detained, injured and killed on a scale not witnessed for decades, in what UN experts have termed ‘scholacticide’. In Gaza, those students were set to begin a new academic year last month. For many, this was meant to be the year of graduation. Instead, they are forced to adapt to online learning while under constant bombardment, taking board exams in hospitals, and defending their theses in makeshift tents within displacement camps—all amid the ruins of their universities and homes.
With some of the highest literacy rates in the world, Palestinians have long viewed education as a powerful tool of resistance against oppression. Universities have served not only as academic institutions but also as cultural and social hubs, fostering knowledge production and scientific advancement. Gaza’s universities have particularly been vital suppliers of medical and scientific expertise especially under blockade. In a unified statement published in May 2023, Gaza academics and university administrators stated, “The deliberate targeting of our educational infrastructure is a blatant attempt to render Gaza uninhabitable and erode the intellectual and cultural fabric of our society.” The ongoing assault on these institutions has indeed hit Gaza’s intellectual and educational capacity, threatening the very foundations of its academic and cultural resilience.
Today, daily life for these students is marked by repeated evacuations, power outages, and airstrikes. The destruction of university buildings has forced them into a fragile online learning system, where access to the internet requires walking many kilometers to find a reliable connection, often paying exorbitant fees at internet cafes. What might take a few seconds elsewhere, such as downloading a lecture or study material, takes days for students in Gaza. Many of them have to get up early to support their families’ needs for essentials like food and water before turning to their academic work, while others have started small projects to alleviate some of the financial burdens. Dreams they once nurtured for a future and careers built on their academic achievements now look very precarious.
Nevertheless, academics and students in Gaza have demonstrated their refusal to let the destruction of their educational infrastructure break their spirit. While university buildings may lie in ruins, their faculty have been determined to resume teaching by Gaza’s universities in Gaza. The Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Azhar University and Al-Aqsa University have published academic schedules extending through 2026, and instruction has resumed online despite overwhelming challenges. Students are actively choosing to respond to these efforts, utilising minimal resources to afford tuition, holding study circles where possible, and accessing books and lectures online. “Today more than ever, education is our only hope,” Taha, an Engineering student at Al Azhar University tells Fobzu.
Medical students at various stages of their training have joined the frontlines to provide medical care to injured and sick patients, earning course credits despite operating within a collapsing healthcare system, the systematic targeting of medical personnel over the past 12 months, and the perilous journey back to their shelter after a long shift. Clinical teaching sessions are held in hospital rooms and corridors, many of which had previously been targeted but continue to serve as spaces for instruction. The experience these students are gaining—balancing frontline work with advancing their medical expertise—is unique, as they emerge as a new generation of doctors and surgeons trained under exceptional circumstances. Through their determination, the students of Gaza remind the world that education is not just a means to an academic end but a form of collective defiance, a way to reclaim their future despite the overwhelming odds. They study to live, survive, and rebuild. In their pursuit of knowledge, they are today embodying a powerful message: Gaza’s universities live on, not in their buildings, but in the hearts and minds of the academics and students who refuse to give up.
