On April 21, with a heavy heart, Hala Sharaf left her family in Gaza to resume her studies in Cairo, Egypt.
After surviving Israel’s devastating war against the besieged enclave, she feared the world had forgotten the plight of her people.
Gaza is under relentless Israeli attack in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and around 250 captured.
In Cairo, Hala saw videos of university students protesting across the United States in the face of threats of suspension and police raids.
The second-year medical student was surprised. She expected that Western audiences would quickly tire of the news cycle as it covered death and destruction in Palestine, and she never imagined that her American peers would risk their futures to call for a cease. -the fire and the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
“It seems like only the students support us, but they have given us so much hope to reject what America and Israel are doing to us,” Sharaf, 20, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Our voice”
Sharaf’s life is one of millions of Palestinian lives upended by Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed some 35,000 Palestinians, uprooted most of its 2.3 million residents and plunged their families outside Gaza into dire situations. anxieties of uncertainty as they searched for information about their loved ones.
“No one can imagine what we experienced in Gaza. We lost our homes and (everything that underpins) our society.
Many Palestinians have moved to Egypt to escape Israel’s relentless assault and imminent invasion of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where at least 1.5 million Palestinians displaced from across Gaza are sheltering.
Four Palestinian students who recently visited Cairo spoke to Tel Aviv Tribune about the American student protests.
“I think these American students are our voice,” said Zahra al-Kurd, 19, a Palestinian medical student in Cairo.
“Even if the protests don’t change the situation for us now, we know they will help us in the long term. »
Al-Kurd says he has lost 250 family members since Israel launched its war on Gaza.
During the first week of the war, al-Kurd and his family fled to southern Gaza to seek safety from Israel’s indiscriminate bombing.
But after their arrival, a bomb fell on the house next to them and razed the neighborhood.
Al-Kurd lost 17 members of her family in this Israeli attack, but she survived.
“My mother’s face was too disfigured to identify… and my father died in hospital from his injuries about a week later,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Losing a future and mentors
Since October 7, Israel has destroyed or damaged more than 280 schools and all 12 universities in Gaza.
Mohamad Abu Ghali, 22, remembers watching from his window as the Israeli army destroyed his university, the Islamic University.
He was supposed to graduate from physics last semester, but the ceremony never took place because of the war.
“I was at home and from my window it was very clear what had happened to the Islamic University. When (Israel) carries out massive bombings – or carpet bombing – it can be seen everywhere,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
On April 25, Abu Ghali left Rafah to attempt to complete his studies in Cairo. Since then, he has closely observed the protests taking place in the United States.
He said he was moved by a viral video of Noelle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who was arrested by police and tied up for trying to protect students in the encampment of protest.
Hundreds of other university professors across the United States have been arrested for defending student protesters and heavily armed police units.
At Columbia University in New York, professors even formed a human chain to protect students, despite the threat of losing their jobs and careers because of their actions.
Abu Ghali said the courageous American professors remind him of his own instructors, many of whom lost their lives in what rights groups call an Israeli genocide. He particularly misses Sufyan Tayeh, president of the Islamic University, who was killed with his family in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Tayeh is one of 95 university professors killed since October 7, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“(Tayeh) was a truly extraordinary teacher,” Abou Ghali said fondly. “He had such an advanced understanding of quantitative mechanics and advanced mathematics…I loved attending his classes. »
A semblance of hope
The Israeli war in Gaza destroyed an entire society and shattered the dreams of a young generation, according to Tia al-Qudwa, a young medical student who also found refuge in Egypt.
She had just started college when the war broke out, and she hoped to graduate and help improve Gaza’s overburdened healthcare system – now in ruins after Israel damaged or destroyed dozens of facilities medical facilities, including 24 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals.
“I have now changed my preference from studying medicine to… international law,” al-Qudwa, 18, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Of course, international law hasn’t changed anything, but what am I going to do? Either I have to accept the world as unfair or be part of the change.
After observing the student protests, al-Qudwa believes that there is a generational shift in the way Americans view the Palestinian cause and that the protests prove that many young people are determined to end the oppression of Palestinians by Israel, despite the risks they run.
“I can’t believe police are attacking peaceful protesters in the United States. How is this democratic? What’s happening there is fascism,” al-Qudwa said.
“I admire the students who are protesting. They are risking their lives and their future for us.
Sharaf, a second-year medical student, said many Palestinians in Gaza appreciate the solidarity of their peers in the United States. She prays that the protests will pressure Israel to end its stated plan to invade Rafah, where her parents and relatives are.
“The student protests in America make me feel like I am not alone,” Sharaf told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“My message to them is to stay focused on Gaza.
“Don’t forget Gaza. »