It's a very long journey – in every possible sense – from Deir el-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip to Durham in north-east England.
“It's another planet, not just another world,” said Sanaa el-Azab, who arrived in the cathedral city late last month after being evacuated to Britain along with 33 other students.
“No one can understand what I went through in Gaza.”
In June, the 29-year-old former teacher was awarded a scholarship to Durham University to study leadership and change in education.
Weeks of uncertainty followed as British politicians and academics lobbied for her – and dozens of other Gazan students with fully funded places – to be allowed to come to the UK.
But in the dead of night, September 17, the “big moment” she had been waiting for finally arrived, and Sana left home, first for Jordan for biometric tests, and then for Durham.
This is the first time she and other Gazan students brought to Britain have spoken publicly.
“You have no chance of pursuing higher education in Gaza,” she told me. “All universities have been destroyed. The education system is gone.”
The main campus of Al-Azhar University – one of the largest and oldest Palestinian academic institutions where Sana received her BA in English literature – is now reportedly in ruins as a result of Israeli bombing and controlled demolitions.
All formal education at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, where Sana received her bachelor's degree, has been suspended since 2023. [Reuters]
For two years, all formal face-to-face education was suspended as the UN warned of a “lost generation” of children.
Schools were turned into shelters for internally displaced persons.
According to the Global Education Cluster, a partnership of UN agencies and NGOs, 97% have suffered some form of war damage.
Many were hit by airstrikes that the Israeli military said targeted Hamas militants and other armed groups.
Almost 660,000 children are out of school. Some 87,000 university students were also affected.
In June, an independent UN international commission of inquiry said Israel had “destroyed Gaza's education system.”
“My six-year-old niece asked me what it was like to go to school,” Sana says. “She doesn't know. Imagine if they missed everything. This is already the third year.”
Last April, Sana opened her own makeshift school in a roofless building in her home in Deir al-Balah. The classes were usually attended by twenty girls aged between seven and 12 years. Sometimes she had up to 50 students.
“I saw displaced children just spending time in lines for food and water, not having a childhood, and I wanted to do something for them,” she says. “For 24 hours we had drones flying over us and bombing all around us.”
But the children were interested. “I wanted to give them a little bit of normalcy.”
At first she taught them English, adding a little mathematics at the children's request.
Weekly art classes were held to allow the girls to express their trauma. “No parent has had time to talk to their children about their feelings,” she says.
And there was simple daily food, because: “It’s not easy to teach hungry children.”
She says she also taught them “survival skills,” including how to filter water with charcoal to make it safer to use.
Sana says she taught her students everything from English to “survival skills.” [Sana el-Azab]
Leaving them and her extended family was a difficult decision. For her and all students who come to the UK, there is a mixture of pride and guilt.
“I left with just my cell phone and the clothes I was wearing—that’s all I was allowed to take,” she says. “I'm so proud to have made it here. But it's very difficult. I can't comprehend everything. It's stunning.
“I am relieved, grateful and happy to have gotten out, but I am sad to leave behind my precious siblings, nieces and nephews, and elderly parents in this terrible situation.”
A total of 58 students from Gaza arrived to take up scholarships at more than 30 UK universities. After the first group of 34 arrived last month, another group of 24 arrived last week. Twenty more are waiting to leave Gaza.
“It was a relentless and very, very difficult process when it should have been much simpler,” says Nora Parr, an academic and researcher at the University of Birmingham who coordinated the evacuation of educational institutions.
“These are the people who are going to rebuild Gaza,” she says. “They want to make everyone proud of them and learn as much as possible. I would like them to come a week or two before the course starts to help them settle in.”
She adds, “But I hope this is an opportunity that can be taken advantage of because the needs are huge.”
At the beginning of the war, schools were turned into shelters for displaced people. [EPA]
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said the evacuation was a “very complex process” and that more students were expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
For Sana, leaving Gaza to study in Durham was an opportunity not to be missed.
Education has always been a refuge and a bridge to the future for her. But she says she has difficulty concentrating.
“It’s hard to go from survival mode to learning. Half of my thoughts are in class and the other half is still in Gaza.
“I'm still discovering Durham. It's a beautiful, safe and small place with lots of supportive people. It’s like therapy for me, just walking around it.”
During her first trip to the supermarket, she could not tear herself away from the bread counter – from the sight and smell of such abundance. But she still cannot eat or sleep normally.
She wants to learn all she can from the UK experience.
“And then I want to go back to Gaza and make changes,” she says.
