Riham Al-Nahhal is one of the lucky few who have left the Gaza Strip to pursue their education. But for now, university will have to wait.
Her original plan was to arrive in Toronto in time to attend Ryerson and pursue her graduate degree in biomedical science. Instead she was held for 26 hours at the Israel-controlled Rafah crossing, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Riham said she arrived in Toronto on Sept. 4, too late to join class. She will not be starting school until next semester. “We are still deciding between Ryerson and U of T, but right now she is relaxing,” said Wal.
Riham completed her undergrad at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and claims she has been trying to make it to university in Canada for a year.
Israel has imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip since the Hamas government took control in June 2007. The borders have mostly been kept closed, and when they do open, only a few hundred people are allowed to leave at a time.
Around 670 aspiring international students in Gaza have been prevented from leaving to attend schools in foreign countries.
Riham’s husband, Wal Al-Nahhal, sponsored her entry into Canada with a family sponsorship visa. Without such a document, most Palestinians wishing to leave the country have to rely on patience and luck.
“They seem only to open the border once every three weeks,” said Wal. “It’s like collective punishment for the Palestinian people.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had harsh words for the Israeli government when she visited the Middle East in May of this year. “If you cannot engage young people and give them a complete horizon to their expectations and to their dreams, then I don’t know that there would be any future for Palestine,” she said. Shortly after that, then-Foreign Minister and Prime Minister-elect Tzipi Livni made a few exceptions and allowed four of seven Fulbright scholars to leave the territory.
The current Israeli policy is to allow only “extreme humanitarian cases” to leave Gaza, according to Major Peter Lerner, a spokesperson for the Israeli Military. International students, he said, “are not people who need humanitarian aid.”
