Amidst the most recent Israel/Hamas conflict in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, a generation of young Palestinians is struggling to get an education while living within the borders of the current Israeli blockade.

Said Almadhoun, a student at the American University Washington College of Law, was among about 500 students who were trapped in Gaza in June 2007 by the blockade. “The problem with Gaza is that all supplies come through Israel,” said Almadhoun. “Gaza is under the full control of Israel. It is an open air prison.”

With a prestigious scholarship from the Open Society Institute of New York, Almadhoun was among 70 students who were allowed to leave Gaza in July and August of 2008, one of a limited number of exceptions made by the Israeli government.

According to a November 2008 report from Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, an Israeli non-profit organization which advocates for Palestinan’s right’s
in Gaza, “Israel partially relented and agreed in principle to permit a few dozen students to leave Gaza in possession of ‘recognized scholarships’ as a gesture to ‘friendly countries’. The general policy trapping students in Gaza has not changed.”

Almadhoun enjoys a privilege that other Palestinian students only dream about. According to Gisha, as of November 2008, hundreds of students still await permission from Israel to leave Gaza to get their degree in the United States, Europe or Asia. Some students have returned to Gaza from studying abroad and have not been permitted to return to their universities.

Boaz Atzili, assistant professor of international politics at American University in Washington, D.C. whose area of expertise includes borders and territorial policy, says Israel’s tight blockade, even of students’ travels, is something that the nation believes is essential to its national security. “If the border between Israel and Gaza is opened, there is a possibility of terrorist attack on Israel,” he said, also mentioning that Gaza’s border with Egypt “is where a lot of supplies come in, including many weapons.”

In addition to the difficulties faced by Palestinian students because of the blockade, recent Israeli retaliation against Hamas has included an attack on the largest Palestinian university in Gaza.

On Dec. 28, 2008 Israeli air forces bombed the Islamic University of Gaza. According to the university’s website, the attack on the school of 20,000 students destroyed several large buildings and partially damaged lecture rooms, administrative offices and other university facilities. The university reports $15 million dollars in damage.

The Israeli government believed that the university was being used to develop explosives and weapons for Hamas, Reuters reported.

Matthew Levitt, senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and an expert on Hamas said that “Islamic University has been explicitly connected with Hamas. Hamas is a group that does not protect civilians, it hides itself among civilians,” he said.

Manal Jamal, a visiting scholar at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., believes that the attack on IUG was one of many “acts of collective punishment towards Palestinian institutions of higher learning.”

Jamal, an expert in Middle East politics and the Israeli/Arab conflict, said that collective punishment has been used before, from 1988 during the first intifada, when Israel closed Palestinian universities in Gaza, and from 2000 during the second intifada, when students in Gaza were not allowed to leave Gaza to travel to Palestinian territory on the West Bank for school or to visit their families.

Boaz Atzili maintains that Israel’s policy towards students stems from their belief that many students in Gaza are connected to Hamas and may act on the organization's behalf if they are allowed to move freely about Israel or go overseas. “A significant amount of Palestinians in Gaza are supporters of Hamas, many of them students,” he said. “Israel sees them as a risky population.”

For Said Almadhoun, his family in Gaza is what he cares about most. With the law degree he will receive in the United States he hopes to work someday in an international organization and serve his community.

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