The lives of students stuck in Gaza due to visa delays

Riman Rezq received her acceptance letter to the University of Alberta’s education program in May. Currently, she is stuck in Gaza and unable to begin studying due to delays in the processing of her visa application. 

Rezq lives in a tent after being displaced by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) more than eight times. She described accessing food, water, and basic shelter supplies as difficult — if not impossible. 

The last time Rezq was displaced was “the hardest. I flee and I leave the house with my family, with not many things that we have. We left and we just ran away, all of that was under airstrikes. I don’t know how we survived that incident, honestly.”

And with all the universities in Gaza destroyed, Rezq’s only hope of pursuing higher education is to leave Gaza.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked communities near the border of the Gaza Strip, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. Israel retaliated with military bombardment of Gaza, killing an estimated 70,000 and wounding upwards of 170,000 Palestinians. It is also estimated that 90 per cent of Gaza’s population has been displaced and only 40 per cent of structures remain intact.

A number of experts and international organizations have called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide. 

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire on October 10 under a number of conditions. According to Gaza’s health ministry, 300 Palestinians have been killed and another 900 injured since the ceasefire went into effect. 

Little change after latest ceasefire agreement

“We have been suffering from a lot of things,” Shimaa Arafa said. “We have been suffering to get the basic needs, food or water, or to have a good internet connection.”

Arafa has been accepted to the U of A’s epidemiology program, but is unable to leave Gaza without a visa. Like Rezq, she has been living in a tent.

Arafa said that the conditions in Gaza have not changed since the ceasefire went into effect. 

“We are still suffering from the same thing,” Arafa said. “We don’t have homes, and this is the minimum thing. I’m in a tent and it can’t protect me from the coldness of the winter or the hotness of the sun.”

“When I go to the medical point or when I go to the hospital, I don’t even find the treatments. In the past week I went to the medical point … I asked them for antibiotics or something that can make me feel much better, but I didn’t find anything to help me.”

Arafa said that even in private pharmacies medical supplies are scarce — or if there’s supplies, it’s too expensive for most people to afford.

“Even shelter is really hard to find,” Rezq said. “When people were displaced from one area to another area to find a place to put their tent or their temporary shelter is really hard. Even winter makes things harder. When winter rain falls, it floods everything, streets, displacement camps, and life becomes really heartbreaking.”

Rezq says she and others need new tents, mattresses, and medical aid, but supplies are difficult to get.

“Gaza has never been like this. We once had a life, it was really calm and … we were happy. And everything just collapsed and turned upside down,” Arafa said.

“It is so hard and it is so difficult to live under these circumstances, in these serious and dangerous conditions. You are afraid to be the next one to die … maybe your home is the next to be bombed or maybe you are even the next one.”

Gaza’s higher education system destroyed by Israeli bombardment

Israel has destroyed universities in Gaza, and many lecturers and professors have faced the same dangerous conditions as their students.

“There’s no good places for students to learn. There are no good labs,” Arafa described. “I am a passionate girl and I love, always, to dream of continuing my higher education and to get my master’s degree and even continue my PhD. But, here in Gaza, I feel like it is so difficult to achieve because there is no university that can teach me.”

The physical structures of universities aren’t the only thing that has been destroyed — access to the internet is extremely limited. 

“You have to walk for miles or kilometres just to get good internet, as I did now [for this interview],” she explained.

The lack of stable and accessible internet connections means it’s almost impossible to make an exam, a meeting, or to do assignments online.

“We all have the passion to keep going and to continue what we started before [the war],” Arafa said. “We never see that as [stopping] us from achieving our goals or living our dreams.”

Unable to leave Gaza without a visa, unable to get a visa in Gaza

Rezq said after her graduation, she had the opportunity to get her bachelor’s degree in another country. But because Israel and nearby countries closed their borders, she couldn’t leave Gaza. 

“I missed the opportunity,” she said. “The [university] just apologized and told me the funds will go to another person, another student who is from Gaza but is outside of Gaza. I was really upset.”

“All of our universities were bombed and destroyed. Our academics, even our professors, many of them were killed,” Rezq said. “The education system in Gaza is collapsed and destroyed. So that’s why we searched for different educational opportunities.”

She researched scholarships and universities that would help her make her dreams come true. 

“I was so lucky to get the acceptance from the [U of A]. It was maybe the only moment of happiness that I felt in the entire two past years.”

Rezq received her acceptance in May. She was also awarded a bursary through the Displaced Palestinian Student Bursary Program. Reqz submitted an online application with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in July. She says that since then, she has heard nothing from the IRCC.

Arafa was accepted to the U of A on March 28. She submitted her IRCC application shortly after, but is also still awaiting a response. 

Arafa and Rezq say that they are only two of about 130 students who have been accepted into Canadian post-secondary programs that are unable to leave Gaza due to visa processing delays.

“It’s a heartbreaking thing that you feel like you are stuck. You cannot move forward, you cannot move backward.”

The hold-up is largely due to the IRCC’s requirement of biometrics, which is usually a photo and fingerprints, for a visa application. 

Matthew Krupovich, a spokesperson for the IRCC, told The Gateway that “where applicable, biometrics can only be completed after people leave Gaza, as the Department of [IRCC] has no presence there.”

Rezq described it as a chicken and the egg situation. She cannot leave Gaza without the visa, but she cannot get the visa if she’s in Gaza.

Reqz’s supervisor at the U of A has been very understanding and supportive. She has been given permission to defer her program to fall 2026. 

Arafa has also had to defer her program until fall 2026.

The U of A media relations office told The Gateway that while the processing of visas is the sole responsibility of the IRCC, it continues to support Palestinian students and advocate to government partners.

That support “includes a commitment to pro-rating full bursary support for students who were approved for the 2025–26 Displaced Palestinian Student Bursary Program. Students who are unable to come to Canada until later in the academic year will have their bursary pro-rated based on their arrival date.”

The media relations office also noted that the U of A currently has 21 Palestinian students studying on its campuses.

Edmonton-Strathcona MP calls on minister to take action

Multiple members of Parliament (MP) and advocacy groups held a press conference on November 25 to urge the IRCC to speed up Palestinian visa applications. Heather McPherson, the MP for Edmonton-Strathcona, spoke at the conference.

“[The U of A] is in my riding of Edmonton-Strathcona, and more than 40 students from Gaza have been admitted to the [U of A] to pursue their graduate studies,” she said at the conference. “To have their academic futures put on hold because the Minister [of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship [Lena Metlege] Diab’s refusal to act. These brilliant students should be in Edmonton, but they are still in Gaza because the government and this minister have been ignoring pleas for months to take action.”

McPherson said that many professors and students have been killed in Gaza. Other students that have been accepted into the U of A have instead gone to France or the United Kingdom (U.K.), according to McPherson.

France has launched operations to evacuate Palestinians in Gaza. Initially the efforts were for French nationals and their dependants, but later expanded to include laureates of the national emergency hosting program for exiled scientists and artists. 

The U.K. has supported the evacuation of students, and now extends those efforts to students’ partners and children.

“We are researchers and we are dreamers, we are really hopeful students,” Rezq says

McPherson said that many professors at the U of A have contacted her office and expressed frustration with the inaction of the federal government.

“There is no reason, there is no understanding for why this is not a priority for the federal government,” she said. “The process is simple, and the framework to get these students here exists. Minister Diab has the ability to do this. She has the ability to do this urgently. I do not understand, given the horrific circumstances in Gaza, why she will not do so.”

She called the inaction political cowardice from the Liberal Party of Canada.

“It is time for the Liberals to end their double standards and their double speak and actually do their job. The lives of the students hang in the balance.”

“I’m grateful to her,” Arafa said. “But weeks later, nothing has changed. We are still hopeful and waiting.”

“We are just dreaming to be like any other students around the world, just to have a university or a campus to go in and to complete our education,” Rezq said. “We are researchers and we are dreamers, we are really hopeful students. We are dreaming to continue our education because we are going to rebuild our city.”

“We want to be the future academics of Gaza,” Reqz explained. “We want to rise again, even if the cities are completely destroyed, we will rise again because hope never dies and the power of education is the strongest power ever.”

A responsibility to return to rebuild the health-care system, Arafa says

Since the beginning of the war, Arafa has worked as a nurse. 

“I’ve witnessed the destruction of the health-care system in Gaza and the medical needs for all the people. The medical aid didn’t cover all the basic needs.”

“[I] touched the medical problem that we are facing. [That] gave me the passion and emphasized the need to get into this program. In the past two years, we have experienced a lot of infectious diseases that we have never experienced before … I have never seen that in Gaza.”

She listed Hepatitis A, Polio, scabies, and other skin and water-born diseases that are spreading quickly, partly due to the dense population. 

Arafa said that she’s done three vaccination campaigns for polio, but the infrastructure in Gaza is so bad it made little difference.

She’s also been working as a health educator and has encountered people who have been suffering from health conditions from the chemicals in the atmosphere from the bombardment. 

“Living in the middle of this thing, you feel like you are responsible,” she said. “I feel like I’m responsible to take this country or to take my hometown to a good level. I have to do something for my hometown.”

Her studies at the U of A will open doors for her to contribute to Canadian society, but also to give back to her hometown, she said. The health-care system in her hometown has been destroyed.

“The education system in Gaza has collapsed and I want to rebuild it better,” Rezq says

Rezq graduated in English language and literature, but her interest has shifted to merging psychology and education after seeing how the war has changed the children of Gaza.

“[It’s affected] their innocence, their thoughts, and I have seen how stressful their lives are,” she said. “I don’t want to be a bystander, I want to help them through education that’s joyful and relieves stress from them. Not just exams, and the full routine. I want children in Gaza to go to school excited.”

“The education system in Gaza has collapsed, and I want to rebuild it better. I have a vision that I will make that change one day when I return back to Gaza.”

She feels that the goal of the 130 students unable to come to Canada to pursue their education is to be able to return to rebuild Gaza.

“Gaza needs people with the skills and education to come back and rebuild our city.”

“Each day of delay, it means delay in our future,” Arafa says

The IRCC introduced the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel in February 2022, shortly after the start of the Ukraine-Russia war. This allowed for Ukrainians fleeing the war to apply for an emergency visa. 

The IRCC told The Gateway that there are special measures for Palestinians trying to flee Gaza. However, the measures requires the support of an extended family member with permanent residency or citizenship in Canada for Palestinians to apply.

The IRCC said in a statement to The Gateway that it is “deeply concerned about the ongoing situation in Gaza and recognizes the extremely difficult circumstances faced by people in the region, including those hoping to study in Canada,” but acceptance to a Canadian university does not guarantee a visa.

“It’s pretty heartbreaking because we have dreams, we have the ability, and we don’t see much action and much change,” Arafa said.

“I consider myself as a student there mentally, but I need to be there physically. That opportunity is not just about education, it’s about all of our futures. Each day of delay, it means delay in our future.”

“Until now, the IRCC has not taken any action regarding our problems. Sadly, there’s no progress. We have been waiting for up to 18 months,” Arafa said. “There are some other students that have been waiting for two years, since 2023. And still now, they don’t get any response from the IRCC related to their visas.” 

The IRCC told The Gateway that processing times for study permits are available on their website. However, “due to challenges beyond IRCC’s control, we cannot predict processing times for regions like Gaza.”

“We are accepted, we are qualified, we have earned our spots, but we are still waiting and we are kept out by bureaucracy,” Reqz said.

Rezq says they don’t want special treatment, only to have the same opportunities as any other student. She said that they have the support of their supervisors, they have the funds, they have been accepted to their programs. All they need is their visas. 

“We are just asking for the processing of our visas, our evacuation from Gaza to complete our studies and reach our dream and to see the future,” Rezq said. “And to experience something away from the destruction and bombs and rockets or these airstrikes and the scary things that we have witnessed for the past two years.”