Education as resistance: Gaza’s universities refuse to be erased

With support from students and academics in Norway, the University College of Applied Sciences (UCAS) has established a vital learning space where students, researchers, and educators can continue their work – in the midst of war.

An emergency measure – with real impact

The NORLYS project was launched in February 2025 as an emergency initiative to sustain higher education in Gaza. Its initial goal was to provide 240 students, researchers, and academics with access to a safe learning environment – equipped with laptops, solar-powered electricity, and high-speed internet.

Within its first five months, the project has reached over 400 people. Through flexible use and a rotational system, far more individuals than originally planned have gained access to the learning space – and the work continues.

This demonstrates what is possible when support is channeled directly to local institutions, led by those who best understand the needs on the ground.

Immense need – and strong determination

When UCAS opened registration for the learning space, it received more than 2,500 applications in less than a week. This number reflects the scale of the crisis, but also the determination of Gaza’s academic community to continue – even under the most extreme conditions.

The project at UCAS is just one example. Across Gaza, universities are working to sustain teaching, support students, and continue research. This is not only about buildings and equipment, but about dignity, resistance, and the right to education.

What cannot be bombed

In an open letter to the international academic community in May 2024, Gaza’s universities wrote:

While the physical structures – campuses, classrooms, and libraries – have been reduced to rubble, the immaterial structures endure: institutional knowledge, academic expertise, and networks of cooperation and solidarity.

These are what make education possible today – and what will make reconstruction possible in the future.

Gaza’s universities must lead

In the international response to the war, much attention has been directed toward scholarships abroad and emergency education initiatives led by external actors. Such efforts may be necessary, but they also risk overlooking Gaza’s own institutions – as if they no longer exist. But they do.

Universities in Gaza are active, resilient, and deeply rooted in their communities. Any support to higher education must therefore be led by the institutions themselves, both now and in the long-term reconstruction.

As the academics themselves write, the world must reject plans that seek to bypass, weaken, or erase their institutions.

Solidarity that works

The NORLYS project has faced enormous challenges: displacement, infrastructure collapse, rising costs, and security risks. Yet it is succeeding – through local leadership and international solidarity.

Let us not speak of Gaza’s universities in the past tense. They exist. They are active. And thanks to the support they have received, they can continue.