MILES PARKS, HOST:
In Gaza, every university and college has been destroyed or heavily damaged by Israeli military strikes during the war. Some students have managed to continue their education abroad, but many of those trying to get to Canada say their visa applications have been held up. And, as U.K.-based Palestinian reporter Abu Bakr Bashir tells us, some students have lost their lives while waiting for those visas.
DALIA GHAZI IBED: Hello. My name is Dalia Ghazi Ibed.
SALLY IBED: My name is Sally Ibed, and I'm a mechanics engineer based in Gaza.
ABU BAKR BASHIR: Dalia and Sally Ibed, 26-year-old twin sisters, recorded these audio messages when they applied for advanced studies abroad. Dalia spoke of her skills.
D IBED: In term of technical skills, well-versed in language like Python, Java and C.
BASHIR: Sally was really excited.
S IBED: Thank you for taking the time to learn about me. Thanks.
BASHIR: After the Gaza war began, they both got a full scholarship to study mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada. It is a field that combines mechanical and electrical engineering and robotics. The twins were in their room in northern Gaza last year, studying on their own when two tank shells hit their building, says their father, Ghazi Ibed.
GHAZI IBED: (Through interpreter) The first shell killed Dalia, Sally, their mother and two more of their siblings. The others were killed by the second shell.
BASHIR: Dalia and Sally Ibed were still waiting for their Canadian student visas when they were killed. Another student, 27-year-old Sakher Yousef, was also accepted to a study program in Canada and lost his entire family while waiting for his visa.
SAKHER YOUSEF: Our four-story house was bombed, and now my family is under the rubble.
BASHIR: Just applying to study abroad is struggle for Gaza students, according to Caitlin Procter, a political anthropologist who researches forced migration of young people in the Middle East.
CAITLIN PROCTER: Writing applications, taking interviews and entry tests from tents while displaced from their homes, often with very weak internet and even under bombardment.
BASHIR: More than 80 students in Gaza were given full scholarships to attend masters and PhD programs in Canada during the war, and they are still waiting for visas. That is according to a group called Palestinian Students and Scholars At Risk, or PSSAR. Nada El-Falou, the group's director of student services, blames the Canadian authorities for holding up their visas.
NADA EL-FALOU: It's very, very clearly discriminatory against the Palestinian students, and I believe that it is Canada's decision and Canada's lack of political will to help these students and to fix the process.
BASHIR: She told NPR a special Canadian security check has been applied to Gaza students with no timeframe given for when it will be completed. Many students have been waiting for a visa for over a year and have no idea how many more months they may have to wait.
EL-FALOU: The point at which they're stuck at is the background check, which is a complete black box. We do not know what happens in there.
BASHIR: The Canadian government's immigration agency told NPR in a statement, it is aware of the increased processing times applications take but denied that the screening was discriminatory. It said it is difficult to facilitate a student's exit from Gaza and that once they do leave Gaza, biometrics requirements needed for a visa can be taken care of in neighboring countries like Egypt. But one student who did manage to leave Gaza for Egypt a year and a half ago still hasn't received his Canadian visa, Alaa Hussain told NPR.
ALAA HUSSAIN: I have passed, of course, all the steps like biometrics and eligibility check and other. All of that is done and asked. Just waiting all of this period, just to get stuck in the background check.
BASHIR: Gaza students and academics say - in contrast to Canada - France, Ireland and the U.K. have relaxed their visa rules. The Irish government says it has welcomed 200 students from Gaza during the war. In recent months, 78 students have arrived in the U.K. from Gaza. Around 20 more are due soon, said Nora Parr, a research fellow at Birmingham University. In total, only a few hundred students have made it to international universities outside Gaza. Procter, the political anthropologist, says these students are vital for the future of the Palestinian territory.
PROCTER: These are the young people who are going to become future leaders in Palestine.
BASHIR: Tens of thousands of other young college students remain in Gaza, not attending school or doing the bare minimum of studying online with other Palestinian universities. They are doing this on their own, in a tent or amid the rubble of their destroyed homes. For NPR, I am Abu Bakr Bashir.
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