{"id":5713,"date":"2021-12-15T16:13:05","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T12:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?p=5713"},"modified":"2021-12-15T19:57:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T15:57:12","slug":"education-in-gaza-palestinian-womens-thread-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/education-in-gaza-palestinian-womens-thread-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Education in Gaza: Palestinian Women\u2019s Thread of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2><em>Special report on women and education<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gaza, the narrow strip of land surrounded by an Israeli\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/live-news\/20211207-israel-completes-iron-wall-barrier-on-gaza-border\">\u2018iron wall\u2019<\/a>, is known to its Palestinian residents as an open-air prison. For many residents there, especially women, education has become the last resort for an escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur children were breastfed by war, they lived through wars, and their childhoods talk about war,\u201d said Samah Ghanem, a 42-year-old science teacher working in the&nbsp;Beach Preparatory Girls\u2019 School \u201cA\u201d, which is run by the&nbsp;United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-7.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5716\" width=\"283\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-7.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-7-16x24.jpeg 16w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-7-24x36.jpeg 24w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-7-31x48.jpeg 31w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 283px) 100vw, 283px\" \/><figcaption><sub>Abeer Thabet after taking a stroll in the Gaza<br>&nbsp;Museum of Archaeology on November 15th, 2021 in Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories . (Archive)<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>According to&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2021\/07\/27\/gaza-apparent-war-crimes-during-may-fighting\">Human Rights Watch,<\/a>&nbsp;Israeli military attacks, during the most recent clashes in May, killed 260 Palestinians, including at least 129 civilians, among them 66 minors. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 1,948 Palestinians, including 610 children, were injured. Gaza has been&nbsp;under blockade from both sides of the strip by Israel and Egypt since 2007. It is controlled by the armed Islamic organization Hamas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abeer Thabet, political sciences expert and professor in Al-Azhar University in Gaza,&nbsp;explained via Zoom that &#8221;female students face two main challenges: the cultural legacy that all the women in the Arab world struggle with, such as the patriarchal mentality and the tribal ideology which stands as a barrier, stopping women from pursuing their dreams. The second is the occupation forces.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result of the \u201coccupation, oppression, persecution, and abuse,\u201d Palestinians are forced to develop a motive to stay educated. Today, women make up half of the population in Palestine, with 94% of these women being educated and holding degrees.&nbsp;<br><br>\u201cIn comparison to the Arab world, Palestinian women have one of the highest education rates,\u201d said Thabet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/thabet-interview-1.mp4\"><\/video><figcaption><sub>Abeer Thabet Zoom interview with Heba Alhamarna, 2021<\/sub>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Education however comes with a hard struggle, for every one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ghanem is one of the volunteer faculty members running an after-school counseling program in Gaza. She explained via Zoom that the sessions were initially due to run over two weeks and be offered to 40 girls who had displayed significant signs of post-traumatic stress disorders as a result of losing family members or the demolition of their homes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is currently extended to up to two months. The 40 students have so far become 120 students, and there are requests for the project to be further extended,\u201d she said.<br>&nbsp;<br>Government-run schools have also attempted to implement similar programs to aid their students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nisreen Abadsa, a 42-year-old vice-principal of the Tabaria High School for&nbsp;girls in Gaza,&nbsp; said via Zoom that \u201cthe first thing that we did after the war was to identify the girls who showed signs of trauma and enrolled them in a counseling program to help them improve their situations.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ghanem, who is also the mother of a young daughter pursuing her education abroad, explained, that even for her, \u201cthe pressure from the surrounding community was unbearable. &#8221;People would ask me how I let my daughter go out on her own. They\u2019d tell me you put your family\u2019s honor and daughter\u2019s purity in danger and only God knows whether or not she\u2019d return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Traveling outside the Gaza strip to pursue their education has become a continuous form of struggle for female students in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ghanem\u2019s 18-year-old daughter Fadwa, a second-year student studying medicine at Menoufia University in Egypt, had to jump through hoops to reach her goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe really challenged us [her family] all as she was insistent and had an inner certainty that she would enter the faculty of medicine,\u201d she said.&nbsp;To avoid backlash from the community, Ghanem hoped to send Fadwa\u2019s younger brother along with her to study in Egypt. But unfortunately, he didn&#8217;t get the required grades. &#8221;The problem of my daughter being there without male support remains there, as she is still under the control of a patriarchal society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thabet said that the rigid patriarchal system was one of the main causes of the high unemployment rate among women, which stands at about 64%.<br>&nbsp;<br>Abadsa, the Tabaria high school for girls\u2019 vice-principal, explained that many female students apprehend traveling on their own to pursue their dreams of studying abroad. &#8221;But after every war, you find many girls being stronger, more persistent and much more resilient to achieve their hopes and dreams.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thabet said that \u201ca large percentage of women complete their bachelor\u2019s degrees in Gaza and then continue their higher education in nearby countries such as Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ghanem continues to feel under pressure because she chose to send her&nbsp;daughter to study abroad, but she believes that \u201cin certain moments, you\u2019d tell yourself that you\u2019re glad that your loved one is living outside the borders of war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/samah-video-article-1-3.mp4\"><\/video><figcaption><sub>Samah Ghanem Zoom interview with Heba Alhamarna, 2021.<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Special report on women and education Gaza, the narrow strip of land surrounded by an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5713"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5737,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713\/revisions\/5737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}