There are young Palestinians who have gathered together the money themselves to study in Ireland through family support, community fundraising and years of personal savings. Others have secured fully funded scholarships at some of Ireland’s leading universities. Many more have been sponsored by charities, philanthropists and ordinary Irish people determined to give them a future.
They have done everything we ask of international students. They earned the grades. They secured university places. They proved their academic ability. All while enduring bombing, displacement, hunger, and the collapse of basic services.
Ireland still said no.
Many of these students were doctors, engineers, dentists, teachers, writers; others were studying to become one before Israel’s ferocious bombardment destroyed Gaza’s universities. Many with qualifications the West ignores. Some also received offers from institutions in Spain, Italy and elsewhere. They chose Ireland.
Last week, Spain evacuated a group of Palestinian students from Gaza so they could continue their studies. Some of those refused by Ireland now regret placing their trust in our country.
According to RTÉ, by June this year Ireland had received 69 study visa applications from Palestinian nationals. Just nine were granted, while 27 were refused. I am aware of a growing number of additional refusals since then. Meanwhile, more than 20 students holding fully funded scholarships have reportedly been denied visas, while over 80 students with confirmed university offers remain in limbo only weeks before the academic year begins.
This represents a dramatic reversal from last year, when more than 80 Gazan students were evacuated to Ireland under a government operation following sustained pressure from Palestinian solidarity organisations, student groups and civil society. The Department of Justice has declined to provide an updated breakdown of applications originating from Gaza.
The reasons given for refusal reveal a system divorced from reality.
Students are rejected because they cannot produce original bank statements, despite Gaza’s banking system having effectively collapsed. Postal services no longer function. According to the Israeli human rights organisation Gisha, obtaining original banking documentation under these conditions is “practically impossible.”
Others are refused because they cannot explain interruptions in their education, even though their universities have been bombed, their lecturers killed and their campuses reduced to rubble.
Some are rejected because they cannot demonstrate “strong obligations to return” to Gaza after completing their studies.
Return to what?
Even more troubling is the emerging pattern that the students granted visas appear to be those on Irish Government-funded scholarships, while students funded by universities, private donors or community organisations are refused.
One student we work with received a fully funded five-year engineering scholarship from Trinity College Dublin worth approximately €38,000 per year. Trinity confirmed the offer. Every tuition fee and living expense was covered, and the visa was refused on financial grounds. It is difficult to understand how someone with guaranteed funding for five years can be deemed financially ineligible to study.
Over the past several months I have worked closely with Palestinian students trying to navigate Ireland’s visa process. I have liaised with embassies, helped students compile documentation and watched them exhaust every avenue available to satisfy requirements they simply cannot meet.
These are some of the most determined, brave, and inspirational young people I have ever met.
They have survived genocide, repeated displacement, man-made famine, and the destruction of their homes. They have watched classmates killed, professors buried beneath collapsed buildings and universities erased from existence. Despite all of this, they continued studying whenever and however they could. They earned places at Irish universities because they believed education remained a path towards rebuilding their lives and, one day, rebuilding Gaza itself.
Instead, they are being told that because they cannot provide documents from institutions that no longer exist, they cannot come.
One Gazan student whose visa was denied said, “the refusals appear to have been applied indiscriminately to applicants from Gaza. For example, some students did submit the very documents and substantial financial guarantees that were allegedly missing.” Adding, “This creates the impression that the visa officer could rely on virtually any justification to refuse the application, regardless of the evidence actually provided. To make matters worse, applicants are instructed to submit their appeals by post, despite the fact that there is currently no functioning postal service in Gaza.” “It is also worth noting that Italy has carried out several evacuation operations over the past few months and is expected to conduct another one soon, involving more than 200 students. Similarly, the United Kingdom is also planning a large-scale evacuation for students.”
A volunteer who has supported Gazan students applying to Irish and international universities over the past two years warns us that “we know these are fabrications. It’s a big control valve and fear tactic, appeasing the right who fear immigration being too lenient.” “It’s the extension of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. We extract from, and participate in creating conflict in, a region, and then are the saviour through charity and never have to acknowledge Ireland’s complicity in the first place.”
We together watched as Gazan students were invited to the Áras for a presidential banquet the same day evacuations to Ireland were cancelled and visa rejections started. It was a day of confusion, shock and frustration I won’t ever forget.
The destruction of Gaza’s education system has been widely documented. More than 95 per cent of higher education institutions have been damaged or destroyed. More than 1,300 university students and over 240 academics and university staff have been killed.
This is scholasticide: the deliberate destruction of a people’s educational system and intellectual life in order to suppress knowledge and learning.
Ireland rightly condemns attacks on education abroad, yet our own immigration system is preventing many of the survivors of that destruction from continuing their education here.
The Government has the ability to respond differently. It can establish a humanitarian visa pathway for students from Gaza. It can adapt evidential requirements to reflect the reality on the ground. It can recognise that documentation destroyed by war cannot reasonably be produced. It can ensure that scholarship recipients are assessed consistently, regardless of who funds their education.
These are political choices.
Every day of delay brings these students closer to losing another academic year, and another chance to rebuild lives interrupted by genocide.
The Government should reverse these refusals, grant the outstanding visas and ensure that students who have already survived Israel’s massacre and scholasticide are not denied the opportunity to continue their education here.
Join us tomorrow, 31st July, at 11 am at the Department of Justice!
