DAN IZENBERG , Jerusalem Post, 25.10.07. The army has broken a promise given to the High Court of Justice to renew bus transportation for Gaza Strip students to Egypt so that they can pursue their academic studies abroad, Gisha - the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement - said Thursday. According to the NGO, 670 students with visas to study abroad cannot leave the Gaza Strip because the Rafah border crossing is closed and there is no other way for them to reach Egypt. On September 17, Gisha petitioned the High Court to allow Khaled Mudallal, a student at Bradford University in England, and his wife, to return to his studies. The court rejected the petition after the state said it would renew the shuttle service on October 2. But no buses have operated in the more than three weeks that have ensued. On Monday, Gisha submitted a new petition on behalf of seven students and four family dependents who are among those waiting to return to their studies.
One of them is Wissam Abuajwa, 30, who was accepted by a British university for postgraduate work in environmental science. This is his fourth attempt to study outside of Gaza. In 2001, he was accepted to a program at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura, near Eilat, but barred from entering Israel. In 2003 he was accepted to a master's program in Germany, but Israel refused to let him leave via the Rafah crossing. Last year, he was accepted for the first time by the British university but barred from leaving. Now, he is trying again.
Another petitioner, Alaa Abo-Jasser, who scored 98.6 on her matriculation exams, was accepted to study medicine at Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany. A German language course to prepare her for her studies began at the university in July.
Higher educational opportunities in the Gaza Strip are extremely limited. Undergraduate and master's degrees are unavailable in key subjects such as occupational therapy, medicine, speech therapy, dentistry and physiotherapy, according to Gisha. There are no doctoral programs in any subject. Furthermore, Israel bars Gaza Strip students from studying in Israel or the West Bank.
For the first time since Cabinet decision declaring Gaza "hostile territory", Israeli Supreme Court asked to nullify collective punishment policy:
“Israel is punishing the student population of the Gaza Strip”
Gisha. Monday, October 22, 2007: University students in Gaza today petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court against an Israeli policy preventing them from traveling abroad to study. “People dream many dreams,” states the court petition, submitted by Gisha. “One wants to be a pilot, another wants to be a scientist… The petitioners dream of studying.” to the USA, Europe, Jordan, Asia and other destinations to pursue higher education. Since the government declared the Gaza Strip “hostile territory,”
restrictions on movement to and from Gaza have been further tightened, and a busservice taking students out of Gaza has been canceled. Many of the students “imprisoned” in Gaza have already missed the start of the academic year at universities around the world. Some stand to lose their places for the entire year – and scholarships – if they do not arrive to their campuses immediately
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