There are currently 76 Palestinian students in Gaza who, against all expectations, have secured places to study at 31 of the best universities of the UK. More than 35 of these students have full scholarships, while eight others are waiting for their internet to put back in use again, so that they can formally accept their unconditional offers.
Despite their performance, all these students are currently unable to take these hard -earned places because they cannot leave Gaza. For a number of them, these places have already been postponed from the last academic year, due to the lack of safe exit routes.
Such a student, such as The independent Earlier marked, is the 22-year-old Dalya Ibrahim Shehada Qeshta. She has offered a place to study pharmacy at the University of Manchester, while her sister, Dalal, protected a place at the University of Bristol on an Aerospace Engineering course. Both have family in the UK, but neither can Gaza leave because of physical obstacles and a lack of financial support.
In response, the International Center of Justice for Palestinians – an independent organization of lawyers, politicians and academics who want to protect their rights by law – signed an open letter with campaign groups of health workers and lawyers, in which the British government was called to take immediate action.
And last week nearly 5,000 academics, including myself, also campaigned for the starmer administration to facilitate the safe passage of these Gaza students to the UK. Among them are more than 600 professors, four vice-channeliers and deputy vice-channeliers, 12 deans, eight fellows of the British Academy and eight holders of OBES and MBES.
The technical problem is two -fold. The VK requires that applicants register their biometric data before an application can be processed, but the biometric registration center in Gaza authorized by the VK in October 2023. While a deferred protocol of biometrics was set in 2023 for Ukrainian Palestinian Wall was found. Although the government says that there are an application paths, none has been approved, even for scientists with fairs issued by the government.
Moreover, if students secure this biometric postponement, allowing them to do their biometric registration in a third country (for example Jordan or Egypt), they cannot leave Gaza. That is why the government must facilitate both biometric delay and a feasible exit path. On August 6, another letter was signed by more than 100 MPs sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling for urgent action on this issue.
The governments of Ireland, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium in particular have all evacuated students with university diploma offers, as part of broader evacuation efforts to offer urgent medical care, in particular to Palestinian children. There is no plausible reason for the British government not to follow.
The profiles and ambitions of some of these students have already been reported on a large scale. Students who have passed English language tests, wrote admissionsays and did virtual interviews under the most terrible circumstances – many of tents and improvised WiFi -Hubs – are in Limbo while waiting for the British government to take action.
The IDF has bombed all 11 universities in Gaza, so that 88,000 students are unable to continue their studies. Some of these universities were completely destroyed; Others were taken over as military bases, or centers for the interrogation and torture of prisoners. Making the permanent education of students possible is not only of vital importance for the future reconstruction of academic space in Gaza, but for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip as a whole.
This issue was repeatedly discussed in parliament during May and June, but so far there has been no change in the requirements for students in Gaza, and there is still no way out. This is despite the recent announcement of the British government that it intends to facilitate the evacuation of children from Gaza for urgent medical treatment. From last week, only three children from Gaza arrived for treatment in the UK.
In 2024, a group of academics and university managers of Gaza Universities appealed to action. Scholasticide – the systematic destruction of educational institutions, as well as the targeted murder of students and scientists – continues to destroy what is left of Gaza. If the British government does not allow the safe passage of these promising scholars, it remains complicit to the crime of scholasticide.
More than 4,800 British academics are dedicated to make the call. They share the opinion of their colleagues in Gaza that education is a fundamental human right.
These are test times, and the position of the government on this issue is a measure of its dedication to universal values of human rights, justice and equal opportunities. Will it practice what it preaches and facilitates access for these heroic scholars, or will it continue to surrender them to the tender merchants of the Israeli war machine?
Avi Shlay is an emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and the author of Genocide in Gaza: Israel's Long War on Palestine
