No West Bank study for Gaza university students

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Gaza university students remain unable to access classrooms in the West Bank, a report fro the Al-Mezan Center for Human rights said on Tuesday.

“After a decade or more of de-development in Gaza,” the rights group said, residents of the Strip need all possible skills to ameliorate the humanitarian situation and advance development.

Students from Gaza City once were able to travel to the University of Birzeit by car in one hour, the report said, explaining that for students seeking post-graduate study degrees in medicine, dentistry, veterinary studies, radiology, medical environment protection, law and democracy, and human rights cannot find degree-granting institutions in Gaza, and historically looked to the West Bank for opportunities.

A blanket ban, the center said, has been imposed on Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip, preventing them enrolling at Palestinian universities in the West Bank to continue their education.

“This ban is not based on security needs – which if certain conditions are met can be legitimate in the context of belligerent occupation and armed conflict– but rather on belonging to a specific ‘categoryÂ’ of persons. That is, students are preventing from accessing the West Bank
because they are students,” the report said.

In the last year, Al-Mezan reported, “all applications from students in Gaza who wish to study in the West Bank are rejected by the Israeli authorities.”