GAZA: Palestinian student Huda Abu El-Roos enrolled at Bethlehem University in the occupied West Bank in 2003. But Abu El-Roos, who lives in the Gaza Strip, has never set foot inside the campus.Citing security reasons, Israel has prohibited the 21-year-old and nine colleagues from attending classes on occupational therapy in the biblical town. Instead, the students listen to lectures via a video conference link from Gaza's Al-Aqsa University.
They are among hundreds of students from the Gaza Strip who have been barred from West Bank universities. Israel's high court -- referring to the case of the 10 students -- recently challenged that sweeping ban and gave the state until mid-December to explain its policy.
“We feel lost,” Abu El-Roos said.
“The Israeli army has displaced an entire people. It is not difficult for them to displace 10 students and prevent them from studying at their university,” she said.
Israel placed heavy curbs on Palestinian travel between Gaza and the West Bank -- which are separated by the Jewish state -- when a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 following the collapse of peace talks.
Those rules, which Israel says aim to stop suicide attacks, have been tightened since Hamas formed a government in March after winning elections.
The students, who are in their final year, said it was hard to learn occupational therapy from a screen. Bethlehem University is the only one in the Palestinian territories offering the course. Occupational therapists treat people with disabilities, helping them develop or regain skills that could enable them to find work.
It's a profession in great demand in Gaza, where years of conflict with Israel have taken their toll on life and limb.
Gaza has just one expert in this field, according to Israeli human rights group Gisha, which has challenged the ban in court.
The students said the army had rejected several applications for them to travel through Israel to the West Bank, which has better educational facilities than Gaza, a poor, arid strip of land that is home to around 1.4 million Palestinians. Permission to enter the West Bank from Jordan had also been denied, they said.
Practical training provided by foreign occupational therapists had dried up because of a wave of kidnappings of aid workers and journalists in the past 12 months.
And there is the distraction of constant violence in the coastal strip: Israeli military assaults, internal fighting between rival Palestinian factions or ordinary crime.—Reuters
GAZA: Palestinian student Huda Abu El-Roos enrolled at Bethlehem University in the occupied West Bank in 2003. But Abu El-Roos, who lives in the Gaza Strip, has never set foot inside the campus.Citing security reasons, Israel has prohibited the 21-year-old and nine colleagues from attending classes on occupational therapy in the biblical town. Instead, the students listen to lectures via a video conference link from Gaza's Al-Aqsa University.
