27-05-2025
In Gaza, studying lets you 'not think about death all the time'
Narmin al-Zeitonia earned her bachelor's degree in agricultural science in early May, graduating at the top of her class at Gaza's Al-Azhar University. Yet the university, just like the other 11 higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip, had been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombings in the fall of 2023.
After having been damaged three times by previous Israeli offensives, the agriculture department in which Narmin had attended her classes – which had recently been rebuilt, thanks to a donation from the king of Morocco – was completely destroyed this time. Despite this, the 23-year-old student managed to continue her studies, thanks to an online teaching program launched by the three main universities in the Palestinian enclave – Al-Azhar, Al-Aqsa, and the Islamic University of Gaza – in the summer of 2024
In the first six months of the war in Gaza, after it was triggered by the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, the entire education sector was paralyzed by chaos. Three university heads, hundreds of professors and thousands of students were killed, while the rest – just like all of Gaza's population – were displaced, following evacuation orders by the Israeli army. All of a sudden, nearly 90,000 students saw their academic careers interrupted.
