Gaza woes force educated to leave
Palestinians await permission to enter Egypt at the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza on 13 February.
APA images
When Egypt opened the Rafah crossing in February for three days, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza applied to leave.
Among them were 29-year-old Rani Humeid.
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“I’m leaving Gaza to find the future that I dream of,” said Humeid as he was waiting in a makeshift departure hall at the crossing.
Humeid earned a master’s degree in media and public relations in Malaysia in 2012, and he continued studying when he returned.
“I received a research grant from the Media Development Center of Birzeit University in Gaza,” said Humeid.
But the young scholar also needed to earn money. He worked, he said, as a part-time lecturer at both Al-Aqsaand Palestine universities in Gaza and took on a job as a program coordinator at the Palestinian Association for Education and Environmental Protection.
“I’ve done a lot during the last three years in Gaza but I’m sure I would have accomplished more if I had been abroad,” he said. “Life here is difficult. I lost a lot of opportunities because of the closed crossings.”
Brain drain
After nearly 10 years of suffocating siege, the Gaza Strip’s economy lies in tatters.
The 43 percent unemployment rate is the highest in the world, according to the World Bank, and youth unemployment has soared above 60 percent.
In such a climate, it is not surprising that Gaza’s brighter and better educated, like Humeid, seek their futures elsewhere.
Humeid is now going the US where he hopes to finish his PhD.
“I am going to find opportunities and improve my academic capacity,” he said.
He is not alone.
Travel from Gaza is entirely contingent on the political situation. There are only two exits. Travel north, through the Erez checkpoint and into Israel or on to the West Bank, is only allowed for some aid workers with international organizations, patients in need of critical care, those with special permits granted by the Israeli military, almost impossible to obtain, or a few merchants with business in Israel.
South, to Egypt, the way is mostly barred. Before Cairo opened the Rafah crossing from 13 to 15 February, and since October 2014, the crossing had been open a mere 39 days.
