Gaza’s class of 2023 finally sit exams under bombs, loss and displacement
Gaza’s class of 2023 finally sit exams under bombs, loss and displacement
On the morning of his final high school exam, Tawfiq Abu Dallal got a call from a friend.
His brother and cousin had just been wounded in an Israeli air strike while checking on their aunt in Gaza City’s al-Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Abu Dallal ran 3km to the hospital, saw them alive, then rushed back to the exam hall - 30 minutes late.
“I couldn’t focus on my answers,” the Palestinian teenager told Middle East Eye. “I just wanted to finish and go back to them.”
Abu Dallal is one of thousands of students in Gaza who sat for their high school exams earlier this month, nearly two years after the rest of the world’s class of 2023 had already entered university.
The delay came amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, with the Ministry of Education postponing exams twice before announcing they would be held online via the WiseSchool app on 6 September, during the height of Israel’s latest assault to occupy the Gaza Strip.
Despite the deepening ground invasion, the ministry stuck to the date, promising flexibility for those unable to attend.
For 19-year-old Abu Dallal, from Gaza City’s al-Sabra neighbourhood, exam preparation meant surviving daily bombardments, hunger and repeated displacement.
With internet hubs destroyed, he often walked 2km to an education centre to access eSIM data.
'I studied late at night by phone torchlight, under Israeli bombardments'
- Tawfiq Abu Dallal, Palestinian student
The eldest of six, he had long dreamed of studying journalism to support his family. But since the war began on 7 October 2023, his education was reduced to brief moments between collecting firewood, fetching water, queueing for aid and helping his younger siblings evacuate under fire.
“My siblings are too young to carry heavy things, so I had to help them,” he said.
“Sometimes Israeli tanks were bombing a few kilometres away. I wasn’t sure I would survive long enough to graduate, but I kept studying.”
His family sacrificed what little they had.
His mother gave him the largest share of food. His father dismantled furniture to sell as firewood, using the money to buy Abu Dallal books and coffee. His grandmother, Sameha, 72, saved sweets and white flour just for him.
After their home in Shujaiya was bombed, Sameha and four of her sons were displaced to al-Majdal School. Tawfiq joined her there last month after an air strike hit near his home.
“She would sit at the classroom door, preventing my uncles from coming in so I could study,” he said.
“She always told me she was waiting for the day I would celebrate passing my secondary education.”
On 12 August, an Israeli air strike hit near the school. Shrapnel struck Sameha in the neck and killed her.
“I was near her. Her last words were for my uncles to take care of me,” Abu Dallal recalled, eyes welling.
“Her loss shattered my heart. I couldn’t study for two weeks. Then I decided to persevere - for her.”
After her death, his uncles and their families returned to stay with his own - 35 people under one roof.
“I studied late at night by phone torchlight, under Israeli bombardments and explosive-laden robots,” he recalled.
Studying between panic attacks
For Malak al-Qishawi, 19, every trip to study or sit an exam felt like a final goodbye to her family.
Before leaving, her parents would give her survival instructions:
Change the route if the streets are empty. Always ask people if it’s safe to continue. Call when you reach key landmarks. Lie on the ground if a building nearby is bombed. If you’re suddenly surrounded by ground troops, stay where you are and sleep there.
Sometimes, they even walked with her.
Her fear intensified just days before her finals, when her friend Haneen was killed while walking to an internet spot.
“I imagined it could have been me,” she told MEE.
The next day, her mother and brother accompanied her to the exam. On their way home, three Israeli air strikes hit a building in front of them.
“We rushed into a stranger’s house and stayed there for an hour. I suffered a panic attack. When we finally left, we ran home, pressed against the walls of the street,” Qishawi recalled.
She spent the next day in bed, sick and exhausted. Then she got up the following morning, just in time for her next exam.
“Over the past weeks, I sat all my exams with barely a few hours of revision. The situation in Gaza City is horrific.”
Qishawi and her family had refused to flee south but had been forced to move repeatedly between temporary shelters in Gaza City.
She had once hoped to focus on her studies when the war ended, but it was the support of her family, especially her 20-year-old brother Abdulrahman, that gave her strength to carry on even under bombardment.
In July 2024, just as they began to settle into a temporary apartment on al-Jala Street, an Israeli air strike hit the floor above them. Four people were killed, including Abdulrahman, who was struck in the head by shrapnel and died instantly.
“I couldn’t study for months after his death,” Qishawi said. “But I wanted to bring some happiness back into my family’s life through my future success.”
Qishawi hopes to study architecture after the war and work online - believing remote jobs are safer in Gaza, where offices are often destroyed in Israeli escalations - despite widespread internet blackouts.
“Many people around the world think we only need educational scholarships to study,” she said.
“But they don’t realise that many students cannot leave their families behind while they are suffering.
“As a young girl, a student, and a citizen of Gaza, all I want is for this war to end now.”
Studying in tents
In Gaza City’s al-Sabra neighbourhood, 18-year-old Aya Draimli was overjoyed to finally complete her high school exams after two years of disruption.
Often ranked first in her class, Draimli had struggled to keep studying through the war, holding onto her dream of becoming a doctor. But the path to that goal was anything but smooth.
In November 2023, during Israel’s first ground invasion of Gaza City, Draimli and her family of five fled south with nothing - no clothes, books, or belongings - eventually living in a makeshift tent on a street in al-Zawaida.
“I hoped the war would end soon,” she said. “But after three months, I decided to resume studying.”
Unable to afford new books, she borrowed from friends and recorded notes on her phone.
“Sometimes I’d summarise lessons so I could return to them later.”
'Israel doesn’t want us to be educated'
- Aya Draimli, Palestinian student
Tent life made studying nearly impossible.
“It was like a closed box, boiling in summer, freezing in winter, and too loud from the street. I studied from 10am until sunset, because after dark, there was no light.”
Her family have called her “Doctor Aya” since childhood, backing her ambition to specialise in gynaecology.
“My father was always there. When I was tired, he made me tea. When I was discouraged, he told me I was their hope,” Draimli told MEE.
“At night, he held the phone torch so I could keep practising questions.”
Their family only had two working phones. “Every time someone called, it interrupted my study,” she added.
Luckily, when they returned north after a short ceasefire, their home was still standing.
But since 13 August, Israeli forces have unleashed a fresh wave of bombardment on Gaza City, ahead of the ground invasion to occupy the famine-stricken Palestinian enclave, which began earlier this month.
“Many of our relatives fled again. I kept thinking we’d have to flee too, or be killed,” Draimli said. “We packed a bag just in case.”
“It’s terrifying to sit for exams that shape our future while being trapped in a war that feels endless.”
Draimli believes more could have been done.
“I wish NGOs had negotiated safe zones for students during exams, but Israel doesn’t want us to be educated.”
Now that she’s completed her exams, Draimli hopes to apply for a scholarship abroad, but dreams of studying in Gaza, close to her family.
