Desperate for Higher Education, Students Remain Trapped in Gaza

Born into a place of poverty and conflict, Zohair Abu Shaban, 24, has one ambition that would raise him above the hardship around him: he wants to be a professor of electrical engineering. For most young men born and raised in Gaza City this might seem an impossible dream. No university in Gaza offers any degree above undergraduate level and only the area's top university - the Islamic University - runs an electrical engineering course.

Abu Shaban took the course and came first in his year. Then he won a Fulbright scholarship to study for a masters at the University of Connecticut. But he had first to get out of Gaza and it is that challenge that has all but undone his dream.

Last year, Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity" after Hamas seized control there. Israel closed the crossings out of Gaza and students such as Abu Shaban were unable to leave. In May, the US state department told the seven Fulbright scholars from Gaza their scholarships were canceled, until the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, intervened. In the end, three of the seven reached the US and began studying. Abu Shaban and two others had their visas canceled, for unspecified reasons.

Frustrated but not deterred, he won a place to begin a masters at Imperial College London and has been told to arrive for his course by next Saturday. But Israel still refuses to allow him out of Gaza and the Egyptian border is closed.

"Peace only comes from education and if you steal education from the youth I don't know what future there is," Abu Shaban said.

After the Fulbright case Israel allowed about 70 students to leave through the Erez crossing, and another 100 crossed out of Rafah in August. Israel's foreign ministry said the restrictions would remain as long as Gaza was ruled by Hamas. "It is not really about the individual potential of each ... person, the question here is what do you do when there is a territorial entity ruled by a terrorist group that defies you violently ... and refuses to maintain normal relations."