Gaza crisis

We have received a number of enquiries from university partner colleagues, asking what we are doing, or hope to do, to help academics in Gaza.

As always, our focus is on the individual academics who need and deserve help, not on the politics. We have for some years been supporting Palestinian Fellows; and we have been following the recent tragic events in and around Gaza with deep concern. As we reported recently, one of our ‘alumni’ has already been killed there. Another is still in Gaza; we have a further placement lined up for him in the UK but almost nobody is able to leave at the moment, so he is having to stay, in very dangerous circumstances.

Some other academics in Gaza have also contacted us in recent weeks, seeking our help to get away. We are keeping in touch with them as best we can, given the very poor internet connectivity there now. Again, they cannot leave at the moment, and even keeping in touch with us can expose them to danger. We understand that, for some people at least, just getting a signal means going out into the open, and on raised ground. We urge them not to take risks.

We very much hope that peace can be restored soon, of course, and we will be ready to help as soon as people can leave. We hope that our university partners will be able to support us in this, with further placement offers, and invite them to contact us if they can.

When it becomes possible to rebuild higher education in the area more generally, we hope to be able to help with this too, using the experience we have gained through our three regional programmes (e.g. our Syria Programme). But we are unable to plan anything specific as long as the present crisis continues.