28 October 2025

If ever Palestine’s collective spirit and national resistance were sustained by education, it is now. Friends of Palestine Universities (formerly Fobzu) publishes this enspiriting picture of the new academic year at one of the Gaza universities.

Gaza Universities Reopen Admissions for Tawjihi Students After Two Years

Oct 28, 2025 |

After two years of deliberate and systematic targeting of educational infrastructure which devastated every university campus in Gaza, this week marked a moment of extraordinary resilience: leading universities reopened their doors for in-person admissions for the first time since October 2023. The 2025/26 academic year welcomes the “Phoenix Cohort”, 26,000 Tawjihi students whose secondary exam results were announced on 14 October.

Admissions desks have been set up in repurposed rooms within partially destroyed buildings, where academic and administrative staff receive new students, answer questions, and process applications with minimal equipment. Amid the ruins, hope and purpose have returned to the heart of Gaza’s academic life.

These students completed their final exams under conditions of siege, bombardment, and starvation – studying without electricity, reliable internet, or even paper and pens. Many revised by candlelight in overcrowded shelters or tents, writing on scraps of paper when notebooks ran out. “The height of the starvation war came during exams, when there was no paper or light at night,” one student recalled in an online interview. “I studied between tents and displacements while trying to help my family survive. Sometimes it felt like the situation was stronger than us, but there was always hope to continue,” another added.

Despite the loss of more than 240 professors and staff, and the near-total destruction of physical campuses, Gaza’s universities remain unbroken. Online teaching continues, and makeshift lecture halls have appeared wherever possible. For Gaza’s youth, the reopening of admissions is not simply an administrative milestone, it is an affirmation of life. Each new enrolment, each class convened amid devastation, affirms a simple truth: in Gaza, education is not just a right. It is survival itself.