Nour Doghmosh took online courses at an internet hotspot in Gaza to obtain her computer science diploma. She celebrated her graduation in February, 2025, at a makeshift private ceremony.Mahmoud Islim Al-Basos/Supplied
Gaza’s universities did not wait for reconstruction funds to reopen their destroyed campuses. In one of the shattered strip’s most remarkable recovery efforts, they went online instead.
Today, the universities are handing out diplomas to thousands of students, most of whom live in tents or the ruins of their homes and last saw a functioning classroom before the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Online teaching has become the norm because there is no certainty that the universities will be rebuilt any time soon. This week, a joint report by the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank said Gaza needs US$71.4-billion to rebuild essential services and infrastructure, including schools.
The report marked the first economic assessment of the strip since the U.S.-backed ceasefire went into effect last October. Almost no reconstruction has happened since then. Hamas and Israel each control half of Gaza. Hamas has not disarmed, and Israel maintains tight controls over the entry of goods and services into the strip.
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Under such conditions, online teaching has expanded and become more sophisticated.
Al-Aqsa University was one of the first schools to reopen. Israeli bombing largely destroyed the campus in early 2024. Instead of closing its education programs, its professors did what they did during the pandemic in 2020 and went online.
It wasn’t easy, said Tawfiq Jebril, the architectural engineer who is the head of the university’s Department of Decoration and Interior Design and is now teaching in China.
“There was great difficulty in dealing with the internet and electricity, given that they were, and still are, almost completely unavailable,” he said in an interview via e-mail. “However, we were able to rely on solar energy and some external generators. We created some private workspaces where students could communicate with the university, complete assignments and take various exams.”
Displaced Palestinian university students rally against travel restrictions that hinder their education access in Gaza on Monday.OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty Images
One of the online graduates was Nada Doghmosh, 26, who was Mr. Jebril’s student. She and her wounded father, Thabet, left Gaza for Egypt in February, 2024. Four months later, she was taking classes again.
“I was so happy that our education system was back by June,” she said. “I followed my classes online from Egypt. Education for us Palestinians is absolutely essential. We are used to wars in Gaza. Education doesn’t stop for us during wars.”
Ms. Doghmosh graduated in interior design last year, one year later than she was supposed to. There was no graduation ceremony, and the loss of two of her fine arts professors, who were killed in their homes during Israeli attacks, deeply saddened her. But at least she had her diploma.
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Her younger sister, Nour, had a more festive graduation in Gaza the same year. She received her diploma in computer science from Islamic University after taking online courses at an internet hotspot in Gaza City.
She wanted a real graduation ceremony, so she and a friend, Reema Alwahidi, organized one for themselves.
“When I was close to finishing my studies during the war, we wanted to immortalize our memory of university with pictures,” she said. “I found a graduation uniform from a friend, and a cap from my sister, and I made a graduation scarf with my name. So I had a full uniform collected from different people.”
Photojournalist Mahmoud Islim Al-Basos was killed in Gaza in March, 2025, a month after he took Nour Doghmosh's graduation photos.Supplied
A photographer friend, Mahmoud Islim Al-Basos, shot pictures of them in full regalia in front of the ruins of Islamic University in February, 2025. Mr. Al-Basos was killed by an Israeli drone strike in northern Gaza a month later.
Late last year, UNESCO, the UN’s education and culture organization, launched the Gaza Virtual Campus program to support higher education for 20,000 students.
The program uses a shared digital platform to help each university create a full academic environment. As many as 180 students a day use a learning space that UNESCO has equipped with computers and internet access.
Scholars Without Borders, an American charity, is behind another academic effort in Gaza. It has built what it calls University City, an attempt to replicate a lecture hall.
The makeshift campus, located in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, used discarded material – wood, sheet metal, concrete blocks – to create an education space with internet access powered by solar panels. Its six halls can accommodate 600 students a day. Each participating university gets full access to the space for a full day on a weekly rotating schedule. Courses that require in-person teaching, such as medical training, are given priority access.
Gaza’s education comeback has a long way to go. While many thousands of Palestinians are back in online or temporary physical classrooms, many more are not. But professors think the numbers will rise.
“This is a great challenge, continuing education despite the destruction, absence of life itself and despite the absence of an educational environment,” Mr. Jebril said. “It is our message of defiance and resilience.”