‘I am physically here, but mentally in Gaza,’ says lecturer now living in UK

For Amani Ahmed, her new life with her family in Edinburgh, studying for a PhD at one of the UK’s top universities, is bittersweet. Every day she checks her phone, seized by a fear that she will find a text saying her mother, brother or sister have been found under the rubble in Gaza.

“I feel that I am physically here, but mentally there in Gaza,” she said.

“I lost my father and I couldn’t even say goodbye to him. We are out of Gaza, but we’re stuck there in our thoughts. It’s the place where we lived, and our extended families, relatives, friends … everyone is there. We check social media and feel afraid that we are going to hear someone has been killed.”

Ahmed was a lecturer and head of the International Relations department at the Islamic University of Gaza, which now lies under rubble after continued bombing.

Yet she counts herself lucky. She started her PhD on a scholarship at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, planning to commute between Gaza and Scotland. She returned to Edinburgh after the summer holidays at the beginning of October 2023, only for Israel’s full-scale invasion to begin.

The war scuppered her plans to interview female entrepreneurs in the Gaza Strip for her research, but she was most troubled by leaving her family behind, including her husband, two teenage daughters and eight-year-old son.

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“I felt worried. I thought it would be better to go back to Gaza to be with the children, but the borders closed,” she said. “Three days after the war started, there were heavy bombings and airstrikes around our flat in Gaza. The children and my husband were in there when a dramatic bombing caused the windows to collapse, and glass was everywhere. My husband told me the children panicked and he took them in our car to a friend’s house. It wasn’t safe to move, but it was safer than staying at home.”

Ahmed is one of the first two Palestinian researchers to receive support from the Council for At Risk Academics (Cara), which rescues academics who are at risk from persecution, violence and conflict.

The charity says Palestinians represent the highest number of academics in need of urgent assistance, which has fuelled a level of demand not seen since its foundation in the 1930s.

Since October 2023, the charity has received 120 applications from Palestinians, 13 of which it is working to support. One academic who worked as faculty dean at Gaza University has already been placed with a visiting fellowship at Cambridge University.

The picture for Palestinian education is stark. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Authority, 120 academics have been killed since 7 October 2023, while a UN report found that 80% of schools and universities are destroyed.

Cara helped Ahmed arrange for her family members to obtain student dependent visas, covering the exorbitant costs that Ahmed estimated at more than £10,000, along with their living expenses.

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The family were finally reunited in time for Ramadan in April, after months of sleepless nights for Ahmed, during which she would check her phone hourly for updates. She vividly recalls a video her husband sent of her son panicked and crying: “I don’t want to die.”

During that period, she was tormented by the scenes she saw on social media. “I was seeing families trapped under the rubble, children who had been killed and some who were still alive but had lost limbs. I was afraid one day I would wake up and have a message that the house had been bombed.”

Her parents, sister, brother and own family were staying in the same house. “It wasn’t an easy time period. I was praying but I couldn’t do anything, I felt helpless. Sometimes, I didn’t have a chance to talk to them because there were interruptions in the electricity.”

Her sisters, brother and mother are now staying in tents in al-Nuseirat camp, where there are regular bombings and evacuation orders.

Though they count themselves fortunate, her family has faced challenges integrating with their new community. Ahmed’s eldest daughter, 16, is at “a critical stage in her life”, and has gone from a top student aspiring to a medical degree to struggling academically, with no idea how she will fund further studies.

One silver lining, however, is that Ahmed has pivoted her research to female entrepreneurs in the West Bank, a place she has never visited, because Israel restricts movement. She has been heartened by the “solidarity and support” she has felt from these entrepreneurs, and the opportunity to contribute research that could help rebuild her country’s economy.

She also continues to work for the university, helping displaced students secure exchange opportunities in other countries. “I’m still engaged and I hope I will be able to support further after getting my PhD,” she said.