![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2268880036-1024x682.jpg\")
Bart De Wever and Maxime Pr\u00e9vot are pictured at the Belgian Federal Parliament on April 2, 2026. | Jonas Roosens\/BELGA MAG\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\nSkills to rebuild<\/p>\n
Salwa Abu Elhaj, a business administration graduate in Gaza, said the offer of a funded place in KU Leuven\u2019s Master of Communication Sciences program was \u201cone of the happiest moments of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abu Elhaj was inspired to pivot to communications by her experience pursuing her undergraduate degree under the stress of war and, eventually, famine. She observed how the NGOs that became a \u201clifeline\u201d in Gaza struggled to get their message to donors and international partners. Resolved to keep studying, she walked for up to an hour in search of a decent internet connection to submit scholarship applications and attend interviews.<\/p>\n
Between Abu Elhaj and her fellow scholars are many of the skills Gaza will need to rebuild \u2014 doctors, virologists, computer scientists. Ahmed Alsalibi, who has been offered a postdoc position at ULB,\u00a0studies how resource-constrained health authorities can use AI to efficiently dispatch ambulances to where they\u2019re needed most. Zuhair Dardona, also handpicked by ULB, plans to research how the conflagration of war, displacement and infrastructure damage affects the spread of infectious disease in his home city.<\/p>\n
Bart De Wever and Maxime Pr\u00e9vot are pictured at the Belgian Federal Parliament on April 2, 2026. | Jonas Roosens\/BELGA MAG\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Those barring the students\u2019 evacuation \u201care destroying dreams and preventing people who have ambition, passion, and a genuine desire to contribute to and rebuild their countries from pursuing their futures,\u201d Abu Elhaj said.<\/p>\n
In their letter to De Wever and Pr\u00e9vot, the scholars said they fully understood that Belgium must maintain its immigration and security requirements. \u201cWe are not asking for these requirements to be waived. We are asking for a practical and lawful way to fulfil them in the exceptional circumstances we are facing,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n
The European Commission has helped to organize evacuations from Gaza, but only for medical treatment. A Commission spokesperson said they were aware of the students\u2019 case, but that any evacuation would be a matter for \u201cthe member states concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other European countries continue to welcome students from Gaza. Italy established a \u201cuniversity corridor\u201d for Palestinian students in May 2026, allowing more than 70 students to take their places in Italian universities \u2014 although dozens are still waiting for clearance to leave<\/a>. The U.K. has also established its own scheme for scholarship students from Gaza.<\/p>\n Weyembergh said the universities had put these examples to Belgian officials who had cited \u201clogistical issues\u201d in the way of evacuations. \u201cThey say it\u2019s impossible,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t seem to us that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skills to rebuild Salwa Abu Elhaj, a business administration graduate in Gaza, said the offer of a funded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[76,7,994,3165,176,996,488,3493,787,180,396],"class_list":["post-34492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-bart-de-wever","tag-belgium","tag-immigration","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-migration","tag-palestine","tag-refugees","tag-research","tag-the-netherlands","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117160425708235226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}