For College Students in Gaza, Choices Are Few

Israeli security measures have isolated Palestinians there from outside higher-education opportunities

By MATTHEW KALMANTags: Continuing education, Gaza, Israel

Bethlehem, West Bank

In a basement lecture hall at Bethlehem University one recent afternoon, Nally Husari is conducting a practical class for her occupational-therapy students, showing them how to assess the abilities of a disabled girl in a wheelchair. The conditions are not ideal. The girl is nervous because of the strange surroundings.

And the lecture hall is completely empty.

Ms. Husari's students are not in Bethlehem at all — they are more than 50 miles away in Gaza, behind an Israeli border fence and military checkpoints that for the past four years have prevented them from ever reaching the university.

The students, 10 in all, sit in a meeting room at the Al-Quds Open University's Gaza City campus, linked to their lecturer by videoconference over a telephone line with shaky reception. Ms. Husari directs her remarks at a camera high on the wall above the empty desks and watches her students on a large screen.

It is hard for them to concentrate, and harder still for Ms. Husari to lead a hands-on practical demonstration. But the students have little choice. This is the only way someone can earn a degree in occupational therapy in Gaza, where only one qualified occupational therapist now serves a population of more than 1.4 million people.

Sweeping security measures, introduced by Israel after the start of the Palestinian intifada uprising in September 2000 and the onset of a Palestinian campaign of shooting attacks and suicide bombings, have wreaked havoc on the academic careers of many students in Gaza.

Israeli restrictions, introduced temporarily in October 2000 but never revoked, prevent most Gaza residents from leaving the Gaza Strip. Students from Gaza are permitted to study abroad, but few can afford to do so, and they are concerned that frequent border closures may prevent their return.

The Israeli army had also banned almost all Palestinian students from studying at Israeli universities, although that policy was overturned by Israel's high court last October.

Many Gaza students would like to study in the West Bank if they could. The West Bank is home to more Palestinians than is Gaza — 2.5 million versus 1.4 million — and has far more higher-education resources. Approximately 90,000 students are enrolled in its eight universities and six colleges. Gaza, by comparison, is home to three universities and nine colleges, which enroll a total of 40,000 students.

Universities in the West Bank also offer programs unavailable in Gaza, such as speech therapy, medicine, and dentistry, according to Gisha, an Israeli human-rights group that has assisted Palestinian students in their fight to lift travel restrictions.

But to reach the West Bank, students from Gaza must either cross Israel or enter from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge, which is controlled by the Israeli army. Either way they are subject to travel restrictions.

The result has been a sharp drop in Gaza students attending West Bank universities. According to figures collected by Gisha, the number of students from Gaza studying in the West Bank fell by 90 percent between 2000 and 2006. At Birzeit University, for example, there were 350 Gaza students in 2000, and 35 in 2004. At Bethlehem University, there were 11 in 2000, and none now.

"The policy of blocking access to higher education violates Palestinian rights," says Sari Bashi, director of Gisha. "But it also harms Israel's interests in denying Palestinian young people the skills they need to build a prosperous and peaceful society."

Critical Skills Needed

Bethlehem University's occupational-therapy program was created nearly four years ago by Barbara Lavin, a New Zealand native who has spent the last decade in Bethlehem.

At first Ms. Lavin, the program's coordinator, and other foreign lecturers not subject to Israeli travel restrictions went to Gaza to teach, but after Palestinian militants began kidnapping foreigners, Ms. Lavin and her colleagues no longer felt safe — from either side.

"The last class I gave down there was on New Year's Eve 2005, when the Israelis were shelling nearby," says Ms. Lavin. "In one of my classes, it became quite difficult for the students and me to focus because the shells were landing close enough to make people jump."

She turned to videoconferencing and also arranged for the students to meet their instructors at special seminars at a hotel in Cairo, but Egyptian immigration officials turned back some of the students at the border. When the 10 current students graduate in the summer, the occupational-therapy program will shut down.

"We thought this would settle down, but it didn't," says Ms. Lavin. "It was never meant to be this way, and it's been a nightmare trying to get the program to a reasonable quality."

Her students are committed to finishing the program but frustrated by the limitations placed on them.

"Many of the things we learn should be through acquiring skills and training which we can't do through videoconferencing," says Mohammed al-Ruzzi. "We 10 students from Gaza are rather weak in our practical skills, and training for 10 days per semester in Egypt is not enough — it should be continuous. But I am determined to complete my studies. It's a responsibility and a big challenge."

With the help of Gisha, the students petitioned the Israeli high court in December 2005, demanding the right to travel to the West Bank. But after numerous legal delays, it seems that even if they win the case, it will not be before their program ends.

"It is absurd that 10 talented people have been trying for four years to reach a training program designed to teach them skills they need to give critically needed care to Gaza residents," says Ms. Bashi, Gisha's director.

Israeli security officials say that the Palestinians have only themselves to blame, and that the students' understandable frustration should be directed at the extremists and their own government for continuing to encourage terrorist activity.

Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the coordinator of Israeli government activities in the territories, says dozens of Palestinian students have carried out terror attacks inside Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"We don't like to see people from Gaza coming to the West Bank and spreading their ideas. There is lots of terrorist knowledge in Gaza we don't want to import into the West Bank," says Mr. Dror.

He says that for every bomber and bomb maker, there were many more people helping with planning, finance, and transport.

"These students may be completely innocent, but they are exactly the kind of young people who, if given permission to enter Israel, can be pressured by the terrorist groups to take pictures, collect information, and otherwise help in the planning and execution of attacks," he says.

"The reason that in the last two years there were not so many attacks is because of these measures," says Mr. Dror. "It's not easy, we know that. But we have to protect the lives of people here in Israel."

Trapped in Ramallah

Despite these limitations, Palestinian higher education continues to function, with some success. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of adults in Gaza with a bachelor's degree or higher has risen from 4.8 percent of the population in 1995 to 8.7 percent in 2006.

The three Gaza universities have had to contend with Israeli military raids, power outages, and clashes between rival Palestinian groups that have spilled onto the campuses. The combined pressures of violence, economic stagnation, and government incompetence have taken their toll, as has an Israeli economic siege of Gaza imposed after the election of the Hamas government in January 2006. That siege has prevented necessary equipment, such as laboratory supplies, from reaching the institutions.

Medical studies are particularly affected because clinical courses are only available in Israel and at Al-Quds University, in East Jerusalem. Gaza students cannot reach Al-Quds. Instead they must make do with Palestine Medical College at Al-Azhar University, in Gaza City, where, before the crackdown, the students used to take some undergraduate premedical courses before completing the course in East Jerusalem.

Sbeero al-Taweel, who teaches anatomy at Al-Azhar, says the students travel to Egypt for two months each year for laboratory courses, but it is a poor substitute.

"Because of the financial problems, we cannot provide all the laboratory equipment necessary for the practical anatomy course," says Dr. al-Taweel. "Even when we send the students to Egypt, it's not an ideal way of teaching because the practical should be continuous throughout the whole year."

"The students are rising to the challenges and making greater efforts because they are studying under very tough circumstances," he says. "Any other medical student in any other country wouldn't be able to persevere."

Eman Salem, a second-year medical student at Al-Azhar, was offered a scholarship to study in Jordan but turned it down.

"I was very afraid to go there to study in case I would never be able to come back because of the Israeli closure and the problems at the border crossings," she says.

Other students from Gaza who left before the lockdown now find themselves in limbo.

Mohammed Abu al-Kumsan left the Jabalya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, in 2001 to study electrical engineering in Jordan but then dropped out because he could not afford it. He crossed into the West Bank and ended up at Birzeit University, near Ramallah. His permit from the Israeli army allowing him to enter the West Bank expired after a year, but he stayed on, completed his degree, and now teaches in the same department.

He is, however, a virtual prisoner. Because he is technically a Gaza resident and without a valid Israeli permit to be in the West Bank, if he is caught at any of the myriad roadblocks around Birzeit and Ramallah, he will be dumped back in Gaza. It has happened to some of his friends.

"I haven't seen my family since September 2001. It's affected my whole life," he says. "I find myself lonely and having to face everything alone. I'm away from everything except the help of my friends. It's a challenge, but if this is the payment for freedom, I'm happy to pay it."

Buthayna al-Semeiri feels differently. She came to Birzeit from the central Gaza town of Khan Yunis in January 2000 to earn a master's degree in economics and now works as a financial administrator in the university's media institute.

Her permit ran out in November 2000, but she decided to stay, even though her work suffered.

"I applied to study economics, but it was a disaster because I was very worried about my family and thinking about returning back," she says. After failing some courses, she switched to sociology and earned her degree in 2006.

Ms. al-Semeiri says she never travels outside Ramallah and often cannot reach the university because of Israeli checkpoints on the road, where the soldiers might check her residency and arrest her.

"I haven't been to any other town for seven years," she says. "I'm afraid all the time."

With Hamas now firmly entrenched in the Palestinian government and suicide bombers being apprehended by Israeli security on almost a weekly basis, there seems little hope that the situation will change in the near future. The prospects for students in Gaza look bleak.

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http://chronicle.com
Section: International
Volume 53, Issue 35, Page A47

It is situations like this related above that Universities like The Enoch Olinga College becomes important Service to Mankind offering students an opportunity to receive a quality education without leaving the security of their homes.

David W Morris

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