A Palestinian researcher from Gaza, specializing in English literature and translation. Despite war, displacement, and the destruction of her university, she continues her academic journey under siege, refusing to let her voice or her dreams be silenced. X: @GhadaRozzi
An entire generation of Palestinians in Gaza was long told how to succeed: Pursue an education, create skills to find work and build a stable life. Instead, many have discovered that Israel-imposed restrictions and its ongoing genocide have stolen any real chance of a bright future from Palestinian youth. Degrees now lead to dead ends as ambition has become a waiting game with no exit. For most young people in Gaza, unemployment is no longer a temporary phase after graduation but a permanent condition shaping every aspect of life: relationships, mental health, education and the ability to imagine a better future.
Long before the genocide, Gaza suffered from one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, nearing 45%. University graduates often spend years searching for nonexistent opportunities. Degrees in English, engineering, journalism and business often lead nowhere. Instead, recent graduates have been forced to indefinitely wait for career opportunities.
Yet despite Israel's restrictions, repeated Israeli assaults and Gaza's economic collapse, many young Palestinians remained determined to continue studying, learning languages, freelancing online and believing that education can still open a door for them to thrive after years of hard work.
Today, that fragile hope is disappearing.
The destruction caused by the ongoing war has devastated what remains of Gaza's economy and educational system. This level of destruction is not incidental; it reflects Israel's policies and military actions that have systematically dismantled Gaza's economic foundations. It razed universities, destroyed businesses and erased countless workplaces within months of its war with Hamas. Entire economic sectors that once offered limited employment opportunities, including education, media, trade, technology and local services, have nearly collapsed. For thousands of graduates, unemployment is no longer about struggling to find the "right" job but a matter of survival.
For thousands of graduates, unemployment is no longer about struggling to find the "right" job but a matter of survival.
- Ghada al-Rozzi
Unemployment in Gaza cannot be understood merely through statistics. Behind every number is a person whose life has been placed on indefinite hold. Young couples postpone marriage because they cannot afford basic needs. Young women with university degrees remain financially dependent on families already struggling to survive, and in many instances are now the key breadwinners. Talented and driven students who once dreamed of academic careers now spend their days searching for electricity, internet access or humanitarian aid.
These struggles carry deep psychological consequences. Prolonged unemployment leads to feelings of helplessness, isolation and exhaustion. Many young people in Gaza describe living in a state of permanent uncertainty, where planning for the future feels almost irrational. Ambition itself becomes difficult to sustain when employment opportunities have been systematically stripped away year after year.
Despite the hopelessness that Israel has engineered, Palestinians in Gaza have proven resilient. Many have turned to freelance work and online jobs as one of the few remaining paths to a relatively stable income. Translation, content writing, graphic design, tutoring and other forms of remote work have become survival strategies for an entire generation. Yet even these opportunities remain unstable, heavily dependent on electricity, internet infrastructure and access to international platforms that are often disrupted by war and political restrictions, let alone more simple shortcomings like job availability.
Many young people in Gaza describe living in a state of permanent uncertainty, where planning for the future feels almost irrational.
- Ghada al-Rozzi
International organizations frequently speak about "empowering youth" and "supporting entrepreneurship" in Gaza. Such efforts are certainly noble. However, empowerment cannot exist without the basic conditions required for life and work. No amount of motivational language can compensate for the devastated infrastructure, closed borders, economic isolation and the constant threat of violence. Ultimately, the structural and systemic factors inhibiting Palestinian success in Gaza remain because Israel continues its occupation and genocide of the Strip.
What is happening in Gaza today is not simply an unemployment crisis. It is the gradual suffocation of an entire generation's future. Young Palestinians in the Strip are not asking for extraordinary privilege. They demand the ordinary components of life that many people around the world take for granted: the opportunity to work, to plan, to build careers, to provide for their families and to live with dignity.
Until those basic opportunities exist, unemployment in Gaza will remain more than just an economic issue. It will continue to represent the systematic denial of hope itself.
Israel's devastation of Gaza is an engineered strategy to render life in the strip unbearable and unlivable. The end goal of that strategy was never unclear or ambiguous, as Israeli officials have periodically and openly called for depopulating Gaza. The facts of the matter are clear: The world is now witnessing Israel intentionally kill all hope in Gaza, engineering an impossible life that forcibly displaces Palestinians who merely seek a life already owed to them, just as any other people or community around the world.
Without meaningful accountability for Israel's actions and the conditions they have created, and without a fundamental shift in these realities, an entire generation will remain trapped, waiting in a place where the possibility of a future grows more distant by the day.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
