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Every morning since the start of this year, I have sat down at my computer to converse with Abdullah, a 26-year-old civil engineer in Gaza City. We were introduced through the nonprofit Scholarships for Ghazza, which pairs academics from around the globe with prospective undergraduate and graduate students in Gaza. With Gaza’s universities obliterated by Israeli forces, Scholarships for Ghazza mentors assist their mentees in applying to universities abroad and securing the funding they need to attend. This fall, at least 62 students have been evacuated from Gaza to universities in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere to pursue their dreams.
Dreams have kept Abdullah alive through what a United Nations commission has just deemed a genocide. His dreams include returning to a post-war Gaza with a master’s in environmental engineering so he can rebuild destroyed water and sanitation systems for the region’s 2 million inhabitants. He dreams of naming his first-born daughter Palestine. He dreams he will see Jerusalem, the sacred city he has never visited 52 miles from his home.
Because Abdullah and I partnered in early 2025, after many scholarships and university programs were closed to new applications, we chose to defer his graduate school dream to Fall 2026. Naively, I thought we had time. A temporary cease-fire agreement was in the works. Once enacted, Abdullah and his invalid parents were able to journey from a refugee camp to what remained of their neighborhood. When Israel broke the cease-fire, Abdullah’s neighborhood was in the portion of Gaza City declared “safe” from their bombs. Even so, he reported, he had to take care when he ventured to a solar station to recharge his phone. Seconds later, he told me, Israeli occupying forces shot and killed a young man who had put his phone on the charger Abdullah had just left.
Despite daily challenges and mortal threats, Abdullah progressed on his scholarship and admissions applications. He sent me essays about his academic and professional accomplishments plus voice memos in his British-inflected English, including one professing his love of English idioms. One day when he apologized for not having a draft ready for us to discuss because he had spent the day searching for food, I started to write, “No worries. I know you have a lot on your plate right now.” Then I realized what a cruel idiom that was. Abdullah has almost nothing on his plate to eat.
On Sept. 14, as leaflets rained from the sky ordering Gaza City’s nearly 1 million residents to evacuate to a southern so-called humanitarian zone, Abdullah informed me that Israeli bombardment had again taken out internet access and asked if I could submit a scholarship application he had just completed. On Sept. 15, as warplanes dropped bombs on the neighborhood previously declared a safety zone, he sent me a brief voice message. In it, I hear Abdullah say, “Oh God. I can’t listen to this” followed by a barrage of helicopter gunship bullets. When finally the bullets subside, he sighs and adds, “Just a minute in Gaza.”
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Sept. 16, the start of Israel’s ground invasion into Gaza City, I awoke to no messages from Abdullah. “Let me know when you can if you and your family are okay,” I wrote. I also sent him a gift link to a New York Times op-ed by the author of the United Nations commission charging Israel with genocide. For hours, my messages went unread. His phone may be out of battery, I told myself. He and his family may be fleeing south. (Abdullah will not leave his invalid parents behind. He reports that Israel has blocked from entering Gaza City the gasoline they would need to fuel their car.) Midafternoon I heard from him: They are still trapped in Gaza City, and they are still alive.
A week ago, Abdullah changed his WhatsApp profile photo to a smart phone’s “waiting” icon along with the words “Loading Future.” The future in Gaza is loading now, and we cannot simply wait to see what unfolds. As UN Commissioner Navi Pillay wrote in the New York Times, “The prevention of genocide … admits no delay. The law requires action. Our common humanity demands it.” Depending on our action are the futures of many thousands of Palestinians who, like Abdullah, dream of repairing their homeland and raising in safety a next generation of children, including daughters named Palestine.
Nancy Welch is professor emerita of English at the University of Vermont, a mentor with Scholarships for Ghazza, and a member of Upper Valley for Palestine. She lives in Hanover.
Alex Hanson has been a writer and editor at Valley News since 1999. More by Alex Hanson
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