Hassan Ayman Herzallah
London Review of Books / December 16, 2025
I enrolled at the Islamic University of Gaza in 2022. As I started my second year, I hoped I would do well enough to get a scholarship to spend the second semester as an exchange student at a university abroad. A few weeks later war broke out. Everything in Gaza came to a halt; education was suspended at all institutions. We began to live from one day to the next, never knowing what the next day would bring.
With the borders closed, the only way to leave Gaza was by paying a fixer $5000 or more per person, an impossible amount for my family. Our home was destroyed. We moved into a tent in a camp where I knew no one.
My university resumed online classes in mid‑2024, but I missed the classrooms, the cafeteria where I would get mint tea, the friends to chat or study with. All I had were a few pre‑recorded lectures – some of them years old – that I had to watch and then take exams on two months later. Every night, I thought about being able to travel and continue my life somewhere better.
I wasn’t the only one. My cousin Amal got engaged a week before the war broke out. Her fiancé left Gaza and she was supposed to follow him. But the war has kept them apart for more than two years. Even now, after the ‘ceasefire’ was announced two months ago, Amal is still waiting for the crossings to open so she can be reunited with her fiancé.
Ahmed, an eight-year-old boy who lives in the same tent as my aunt’s family, suffered a serious head injury that no one expected him to survive. But his determination proved stronger than anyone could have imagined, and he clung to life as if fighting for every breath. Gaza’s overstretched medical services could not provide the care he needed. His family are still waiting for the crossings to open so Ahmed can get to a hospital where he can be treated.
Badr and Marwa got married two months before the war. The home he had built for her was destroyed before she could see it. Now they are waiting for the chance to travel and begin a new life abroad.
My friend Abu Hashem is studying medicine in Egypt. Before the war he used to look forward to the summer break, when he could return to Gaza to see his family and friends and spend time at home. That has been impossible since October 2023. The last two summers, Abu Hashem hasn’t been able to return to Gaza and his family hasn’t been able to visit him. ‘I grew up during the war while I was away,’ he says. ‘My simple dream: for the crossing to open. Not for me but for them.’
I’ve known Salman since we were growing up together in the neighbourhood where we used to live. He had several sisters and brothers. At the beginning of 2024, the house they lived in was destroyed, killing more than half of his family. He was injured. One of his sisters was transferred abroad for treatment, accompanied by their aunt.
At the end of 2024, she heard that her family had been targeted again. ‘I just want to return to Gaza,’ she said, ‘to bury them and see them one last time.’ The border closures made that impossible.
I met Mohammed in September, at the small cafeteria next to the camp where I live. He had started university in 2023. Moving between camps without a place he could call home, he was unable to continue his studies, but he never gave up hope. He won a scholarship to study in Turkey, but is still waiting for a crossing to open.
My mother kept encouraging me to apply for scholarships, even with everything we were going through. I would just laugh and tell her: ‘They won’t accept me, why should I bother?’ But eventually, realising I had nothing to lose, I applied to the University of Buckingham.
At the end of October, I was sitting alone, overwhelmed with confused thoughts and growing fears about the future, when an email arrived from the University of Buckingham. I assumed at first it was another rejection. But I had been accepted. I was on the list of admitted students, depending on confirmation of the scholarship that would fund my studies – an email that still hasn’t arrived.
Something inside me came back to life. The acceptance letter was a sign that there was still a chance I could continue my studies in the UK. Like so many others, I am just waiting for a crossing to open.
Hassan Ayman Herzallah is a writer and translator based in Gaza
