Hassan Herzallah is a Palestinian writer and translator based in Gaza. He holds a bachelor's degree in English Translation and writes about Middle East affairs, life under siege, displacement and the daily realities of Gaza.
When I received the email confirming that I had been given an opportunity to continue my university studies in the United Kingdom, I was unsure how to feel. Typically, such correspondence would mark the beginning of a new chapter in a student's life: a new university, new lecture halls, new classmates and a new city. In Gaza, however, the opposite is true.
As I read the email, I thought to myself: Was this really the beginning of a new life, or another opportunity made impossible by Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip? Should I have felt excitement or skepticism?
In Gaza, hundreds of students have received scholarships and opportunities to continue their studies abroad, including at British universities. Yet most remain trapped in the Strip. As the new academic year approaches, campaigns led by academics, activists and members of Parliament, along with the British government's announcement that it is prepared to help some eligible students leave Gaza, have brought renewed hope.
For now, however, one question remains: Will Gaza's students be able to leave before the academic year begins without them?
In Gaza, hundreds of students have received scholarships and opportunities to continue their studies abroad, including at British universities. Yet most remain trapped in the Strip.
- Hassan Herzallah
After receiving the email, I joined a group chat consisting of hundreds of students in Gaza who had received similar offers to study at British universities. We all had the same questions: Was there any news about travel? Visas? Funding? Had anything changed?
Behind each name was the story of a student trying to grasp their academic future amid genocide. Through it, I met Ahmed Farhan.
Ahmed enrolled at Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 2022 to study translation. He hoped to work as a translator at international conferences. Then the war began.
Displaced in the early days of the war, Ahmed sometimes struggled to charge his phone for days. Other days, he could not get online at all. He lost contact with his classmates and professors as Israel intentionally disrupted communication and electricity infrastructure across the Strip and forcibly displaced families from their homes.
For Ahmed, nearly three years of displacement and subsistence have led most students to prioritize survival over education. Yet just a few months into his displacement, Ahmed shifted course, attempting to reclaim the person he had been before the war: a student who wanted to become a translator.
He started seeking opportunities to study abroad, preparing his documents and applying to universities. Even these efforts proved to be a daily struggle as Ahmed's tent had no electricity or reliable internet connection.
Eventually, he found a free workspace about two kilometers away. Each day, he walked there in the morning and returned in the afternoon, searching for a few hours of electricity and internet access to work on his applications.
Ahmed said the repeated walks caused him to lose weight and suffer from heat exhaustion, but he persisted. At one point, he borrowed the equivalent of about 22 Euros from a friend to cover a fee related to his application.
The problem was no longer finding an academic opportunity. We had already done that. Now, our primary problem is Israel's blockade of Gaza, which stands between us and the opportunities we worked so hard to earn.
- Hassan Herzallah
By the application deadlines in late December 2025, Ahmed had applied to three universities. Afraid that his internet connection would fail before he could submit his final documents, he sent the files to a friend in London, giving her access to his account so she could upload them.
By early February 2026, Ahmed had received a scholarship and an offer to study at Goldsmiths, University of London.
He remembers the hugs that day. His family, he said, seemed even happier than he was. After months of displacement, long walks in search of internet access and waiting, it seemed for a moment that he had found a way back to the future that the war had interrupted.
Months later, that path has once again become fraught. It is now August, and Ahmed is still in Gaza. "I'm supposed to be there by now," he told me. "I'm supposed to be carrying my bags, leaving Gaza and heading to Britain."
Ahmed's words felt familiar to me. For us, the problem was no longer finding an academic opportunity. We had already done that. Now, our primary problem is Israel's blockade of Gaza, which stands between us and the opportunities we worked so hard to earn.
Academics, campaign groups and members of Parliament have been working with British universities to help students in Gaza reach these opportunities. Among these efforts, U.K. charity Phoenix Space has worked with students and universities to address financial and visa-related barriers. Over the summer, public figures also donated personal items to an auction to raise funds for Palestinian students to attend the universities that had accepted them. News of these efforts reached us in Gaza too, renewing our hope in a possibility that was leaving us behind: reaching our universities before classes begin.
For 19-year-old Raghad Al-Ajrami, the news revived hopes for a university life she feared might never begin. She had long dreamed of studying in the United Kingdom. That dream was one of the reasons she pushed herself to keep studying and earn high grades, even during the war, she said. She wanted to apply to universities and scholarships abroad.
Displacement and the destruction of Gaza's education system have made those goals almost impossible to prioritize. "With the war and displacement, all we could think about was how to survive and find enough food to get through the day," she told me.
Still, Raghad continued her education and applied to universities. Eventually, she received a scholarship and an offer to study at the University of Glasgow. Yet she faced the same dilemma: How would she get there?
When Raghad heard about efforts in the United Kingdom to help students leave Gaza, she said that she could not stop thinking about the possibility. Could it really happen?
As she watches people her age embark upon their university lives while her education remains on hold, Raghad faces stark choices. If she cannot leave Gaza, she will enroll at a university in the Strip in late September, even if it means studying online under the current conditions. "Time keeps passing," she told me.
Raghad compared life in Gaza to being trapped in a closed cage, unable to move while time continues outside it. The news from the United Kingdom gave her a reason to believe that her aspirations were within reach. Her fear, however, is that this support will remain a promise.
"I've done everything I can," she said. "We have the right to continue our education."
Then she said something that captured what I have repeatedly heard since joining the students' group chat: "We have the opportunities. We have scholarships. We just want to be able to reach them."
Our stories, Ahmed's, Raghad's and mine, are part of a much broader collapse of higher education in Gaza shared by most students here. Israeli attacks have destroyed most higher education facilities in the Strip, disrupting the education of tens of thousands of students. Displacement, power cuts and the lack of reliable internet have forced those trying to resume their studies to do so under extraordinary conditions. Yet while Israeli restrictions prevent us from leaving Gaza, separating us from our universities, the recent British campaigns have restored some hope.
Soon, thousands of students will pack their bags for London, Glasgow and other university cities in the United Kingdom and around the world. They will move into student housing, bid farewell to their parents, meet their classmates and take a seat in their first lectures.
With the beginning of the fall semester rapidly approaching, I wonder whether the opportunity that arrived in my inbox will ever become a seat in a classroom. That question is echoed in the group more than any other: Will we get out of Gaza before classes begin?
Despite our different stories, those of us in the group agree that the opportunity to study abroad exists. The question is whether we will ever reach it, or will we return to the email where this story began?
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
