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<\/p>\nWhen Karam Elradie won a scholarship to go to Manchester University to study computer science, he thought that by mid-August he would be on his way there, getting ready to move into his student halls.<\/p>\n
Instead, on Saturday he and his family were fleeing the latest offensive in Gaza, moving for the 15th time since the war began in October 2023, as Israeli troops massed on the outskirts of Gaza City, the capital, to destroy what they claim is a Hamas stronghold.<\/p>\n
An announcement over loudspeakers on Thursday informed Elradie, 26, and his family that the street where they had been living in the kitchen of his uncle\u2019s home was on the red line in the latest evacuation map issued by the Israel Defence Forces: it was the next block to be targeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are surrounded by bombing,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re destroying whole streets using old military vehicles. They fill them with tonnes of explosives and blow them up in the narrow streets turning them into rubble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two brothers he knows were the sole survivors from one of these so-called robot bombs that destroyed a nearby street. One of them lost his eye. After that, Elradie said, they had no choice but to leave.<\/p>\n
On Saturday he and his mother, two brothers and two sisters \u2014 one of them pregnant, with a husband and two children in tow \u2014 packed up again. Leaving with only one spare set of clothes, as well as phones, chargers and Elradie\u2019s precious laptop, they paid $300 (\u00a3221) to move the 11 miles south to Deir al-Balah, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering. Fuel in Gaza now costs about \u00a379 a litre.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in a tent again \u2014 it\u2019s like we\u2019re an ant colony running from place to place as people try to squash us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already lost everything,\u201d he shrugged. \u201cSince October 7 we\u2019ve faced displacement (multiple times), famine (several times), injuries (lots of times), we\u2019ve buried friends and family members, our homes and land have been bulldozed, and we\u2019ve been living in hell-like places \u2014 don\u2019t even mention hygiene. There is nothing more to cry about.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On the move again in Gaza: Karam Elradie, front left, has been displaced 15 times with his family<\/p>\n
Apart from one thing: Elradie is one of about 80 students from Gaza who overcame astonishing hurdles to secure life-changing places at British universities this autumn, only to find they had been blocked from taking them up by Home Office bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
To get their places, these students had transported exam papers by donkey carts, risking their lives travelling through danger zones to get a wi-fi signal to send an application. In Elradie\u2019s case he did this with shrapnel in his leg from an Israeli airstrike.<\/p>\n
Yet then they reached an obstacle they could do nothing about: the Home Office requires that they provide fingerprints to apply for a visa even though the only biometrics office in Gaza has been closed since October 7, 2023, leaving them with no means to do it.<\/p>\n
Other countries such as France, Italy and Ireland have found workarounds and got their students out.<\/p>\n
Last week nine students who have Chevening scholarships, funded by the Foreign Office and partner organisations, were contacted by the British government to say plans were under way for their evacuation<\/a>. It followed a campaign and a letter from more than 100 MPs.<\/p>\n But the rest remain stranded. <\/p>\n \u201cWe understand rules are rules but rules should have a heart,\u201d said Nada Alfarra, another Gaza student, who has a place at the University of Greenwich and is one of those with a Chevening scholarship. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so unjust,\u201d said Elradie, who is not. \u201cIt\u2019s destroying us.\u201d<\/p>\n He sent me the contract to move into his student digs on September 6, for which he is paying \u00a312,801 a year.<\/p>\n He was so upset by the news that he spent 30 shekels (\u00a37) on four sachets of Nescaf\u00e9, having not seen coffee for months. \u201cThen I burnt my thumb boiling the water on a small fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cA partial evacuation is arbitrary and unfair,\u201d said Nora Parr, a fellow at Birmingham University and one of a coalition of academics helping the Gaza students. \u201cLike looking out at a lecture hall of students knowing only a few will be given access to the future they have worked so hard to achieve while the rest are left to the most horrific fate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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