Living in Gaza, accepted to Cambridge — blocked by Home Office

Times

6 days ago

When Karam Elradie went up to the roof to try and get a phone signal, he knew he was risking his life. An Israeli army base was just in front and any movement could prompt them to launch a drone and fire. But he was desperate to check his application for Manchester University.
While applying for university is stressful for most teenagers, the challenge for those in Gaza this year, staking their claim from the most dangerous place on earth, was on a completely different level.
Some pupils had to transport exam papers through the rubble by donkey cart. Elradie had to do his interview with shrapnel in his leg after an IDF airstrike. Another candidate crossed dangerous territory to a makeshift wi-fi hub to take an online exam, only for the signal to cut out halfway through. Many were living in tents after their homes had been destroyed.
Interviews had to be conducted over WhatsApp or Signal using voice notes, often in the middle of the night when the wi-fi was strongest, with phones powered by car batteries or solar packs. Some had to try for days as the signal was too weak.
Many had lost family members. Others were going hungry and joining aid queues meant risking their lives.
Yet somehow about 80 of them, aged 19 to 32, secured places in 32 British universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, St Andrews and London. Of these, 32 won full scholarships. They are hoping to be doctors, engineers, teachers, midwives and mental health professionals, and play a role in the eventual reconstruction of their destroyed homeland.
But after overcoming so many obstacles, it now turns out the British government may be the hardest of all, making unfeasible demands for them to get out, including eight who have been awarded Chevening Scholarships, the Foreign Office's own scheme.
While other countries such as Italy, Ireland, Germany and France have taken students to study in their universities, the Home Office is insisting students for UK universities first need to provide biometric data (fingerprints and photographs) to apply for a visa, even though the relevant Gaza office has been shut since the October 7 attacks in 2023 after which Israel launched its invasion.
The nearest safe places with offices are Jordan and Egypt but the students need British government intervention to enable them to leave Gaza. Italy got round this by taking the data after the students had crossed the border while Ireland waived the requirement altogether, taking out 16 students in May.
This approach has left students such as Malak, 19, who has a full scholarship to study history and politics at Downing College, Cambridge, from September, in a desperate situation.
At 16 years old, Malak achieved the top national results in her school exams, the equivalent of GCSEs, but her education stopped in 2023 when the schools in Gaza shut. Despite this, she applied on her mobile phone (computers required too much electricity) to study history and politics at Cambridge and secured an interview.
Armed with a 'very big, very heavy' solar-powered battery on her back, she walked a perilous mile to her friend's house, who had a broadband box but no electricity, in the hope that the panel of academics would be able to hear her.
The panel was so impressed 'with her intellect and her breadth of knowledge' — as Downing College would later say — she was quickly accepted. Now Home Office red tape means she may not get there. As we speak over an intermittent WhatsApp call, a bomb goes off nearby, demonstrating the danger she navigates daily. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the war according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.
'I am living in one room in a relative's house with my father [a former professor of accounting and finance], my mother [a former maths teacher], my two younger siblings and my grandparents in the western parts of Gaza city. For the last two days there are no flour bags at all, so there is no sufficient access to food. We distribute meagre food between us every day. We don't know what we will eat tomorrow.'
Cambridge, where she would have the opportunity to dine in a 19th-century hall in a gown, could hardly be more different. Nonetheless, Malak says she knows that studying at Cambridge is 'no piece of cake' so, after collecting water each morning at 6am half a mile away with her family, she studies whenever she can. 'I don't have sufficient access to the internet and it is expensive so I try my best to download books by the great thinkers when I can.
'I am currently reading a book called How Democracies Die and it is a great book. I am trying to be prepared for my intensive studies at Cambridge. It has always been my dream school. I am hopeful that I can take my place there this fall.'
Nada Alfarra, 28, a junior doctor awarded a Chevening scholarship for a master's in global health management at the University of Greenwich, is also affected.
'I was so excited to get the scholarship but now I am worried,' she said. 'Till now they've said nothing about what we should do, which is very stressful. I don't know what to do. I understand there are rules and requirements for visas but rules should have a heart, particularly in a place like Gaza where everything is destroyed. And this is a government scholarship.'
Winning the place had been a tortuous process of 18 months, during which she, her parents and three brothers had to move four times because of shelling. Last August they lost everything they had when their home in Khan Yunis was blown up.
When she applied they were living in a tent in Rafah. 'I knew my only way out was university abroad so I walked and walked the streets of Rafah, trying to get a signal on my phone strong enough for the internet. Every time I found one it was too weak and I would stare at the university portal refusing to load for hours then return to my tent. I would go early in the morning to 'internet street' to try and get a spot before the crowd arrived. It took more than a week of trying before the submit button worked.'
After the tent they stayed with relatives but their home was also destroyed. Alfarra and her family are now renting a place in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza which she says is relatively peaceful but they can hear the bombing of Khan Younis and struggle to buy food because prices are so expensive with Israel allowing in few supplies. Tomatoes are now $30 (£22) a kilo and sugar more than $100.
Alfarra, who is now helping women with breastfeeding, chose to study health policy to engage with humanitarian crises such as in Gaza where hospitals have been bombed.
'These students have gone to unbelievable lengths to do these applications and went big, applying for the most prestigious British universities because they thought they would be safe and the opportunities second to none,' said Nora Parr, a fellow at Birmingham University and one of a coalition of academics helping the Gaza students. 'Now they watch other countries getting their students out while the UK does nothing. And inaction is a no.'
Karam Elradie, 26, secured a place at Manchester University to study computer science, despite being injured three times in the last 18 months and having to move 'more times than I can count'. Now living in his uncle's kitchen in eastern Gaza City with five family members, he recounts over intermittent wi-fi how he completed his interview with shrapnel in his leg and head after the friend's house where he was pointing his phone was bombed. 'It was a hard struggle,' he said.
Elradie and his family had to flee their home in northern Gaza when Israel launched its invasion after the October 7 attacks, and slept on the floor of a lecture room at al-Aqsa university with 44 other people for a month. When they returned home, everything had been looted. Desperate to complete his university application, Elradie borrowed his brother-in-law's iPhone and went to the rooftop which was the only place he could get a signal. But their roof overlooked an IDF base. 'Going up there wasn't just risky — it was life threatening,' he said. He crouched behind the water tank, knowing that if they saw movement they would send a drone to fire. 'That's how much I was prepared to risk for my education,' he said, shrugging.
'One day while checking my email, a helicopter gunship suddenly appeared and fired directly at me. One shell nearly blew my head off. Another missed my hand by inches and almost destroyed the borrowed phone which was my lifeline to the world.'
Some time after that he was at the house of a friend, who had solar panels with which to charge his phone and laptop, when it was directly targeted. 'We were all wounded,' he said, 'but by some miracle none of us died.'
Throughout the 21 months of war, he has been injured many times. 'I lost people I loved including one of my dearest friends who was killed just next door to me,' he said.
Elradie, wearing glasses, said he had to move 'more times than I can count'
After everything Elradie went through, he was 'overjoyed' to finally get a place at Manchester with a full scholarship. 'But now we are still stuck in Gaza,' he said. 'The war is still raging and our visas are the biggest barrier between us and our futures.'
'We are pleading with the British government to grant us biometric exemptions like other countries have done,' he added. 'We're not asking for a miracle. We risk losing everything, our lives, our scholarships we fought so hard to get, trapped in a warzone with an open door just out of reach.'
One young woman has scholarships to study international development at Goldsmiths College, London, and Sussex University but they are both dependent on her taking an English exam which means going to an internet hub — something she is struggling to find time for in between finding food for her autistic son.
'I have no time to think of anything but the unbearable starvation happening here,' she said. 'My son is autistic and refuses to eat without bread but it's so hard to find flour. Today he kept screaming and beating himself from hunger so I had no choice but to collect some infested with weevils and worms that had been thrown away in a garage. How can I then go to the wi-fi hub? By the time I feed him and wash clothes for the next day and find someone to stay with him, I get to the hub and then I break down.'
She refused to give her name because she said she was 'so ashamed'.
• 'Over 30 people killed' in shootings near Gaza aid centres
Many university principals as well as MPs have written to the Home Office as well as Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East, but are yet to receive a reply.
Among them are Lord Woolley, principal of Homerton College, Cambridge.
'Nearly 40 incredibly talented students in Gaza have earned highly competitive places and fully funded scholarships at top UK universities including at Cambridge,' he said. 'I have written to the government to urge them to assist in supporting them with safe passage to travel out of Gaza, just as other countries have done. These students have overcome unimaginable challenges to earn their places. We urge the government to support these students seeking an opportunity to learn so that they can contribute to the monumental effort of rebuilding their communities.'
Kamran Yunus, the director of admissions at Downing College, described the government response as 'disappointing'. He said: 'The visa application process asks students to specify which visa centre they're going to do their biometrics. There's no box to say they've been all blown up.
'I am hoping the government will come up with a sensible strategy. Given that countries like Ireland, France, Germany, have managed to do this, I believe it is not beyond the capability of the UK government.
'These students just want to come and make a better life for themselves. They earned their places on competitive grounds and they should be able to come and be supported.'
A government spokeswoman said they would not comment on individual cases but added: 'We are aware of the students and are considering the request for support. Clearly the situation on the ground in Gaza makes this challenging.'