The last time Saja Samy heard from her family in Gaza, they were sheltering, along with thousands of others, at a hospital compound under threat of Israeli air strikes.

In her dorm room in Egypt, the 20-year-old medical student clutches her phone, desperately scrolling for any clue as to whether her family is still alive.

“I can’t think straight. I don’t know where my family is. I don’t know if they’re okay,” she told AFP. “Every time I talk to my mom, she tells me that she doesn’t know if they’ll survive this and how I have to take care of myself. But what am I supposed to do on my own?”

Like 6,000 other Palestinians studying in Egyptian universities, Samy has been forced to watch the bombardment in Gaza from afar.

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