How a professor who fled Gaza continues to teach his students in the war-torn region

Israel’s 14-month war against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza.

About 90 per cent of the population of 2.3 million people have been displaced, often multiple times.

Amid the violence, a touching story of Professor Ahmed Abu Shaban has come to light, who cannot stop thinking about his students back home in Gaza.

Motivated by loyalty to his trapped pupils and a deep sense of guilt, the professor often wakes up at 3 am to teach them virtually.

‘Guilty for leaving Gaza’

Professor Ahmed Abu Shaban, 50, is the dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Al-Azhar University, which was destroyed — along with most university buildings — by Israeli air strikes.

Anticipating Israel’s “massive” response after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 , he fled the Palestinian Territory several days later and reached Egypt.

Canadian contacts arranged a posting at Toronto’s York University, where he is a visiting professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.

The guilt of escaping the conflict region also weighs on him.

The 50-year-old says he has an obligation to students in Gaza desperate to study in defiance of unimaginable obstacles.

Abu Shaban says he has a “responsibility” to help preserve higher education in the territory, while the world focuses on the humanitarian emergency.

“Guilty for leaving Gaza,” he told AFP. “Like we just abandoned our country, our people, our institution.”

In a campus office with empty bookshelves and mostly bare walls, Shaban explained that he felt compelled to help make Al-Azhar operational in some form.

He wanted “to give the very clear message for the whole world: Yes, they just destroyed our infrastructure. Yes, they destroyed our buildings… but we are still alive and we will just continue,” he said.

“This is actually a responsibility for our students, for our nation, and for our independent state in the future.”

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Hunger to study in Gaza

Abu Shaban said its pre-war enrolment was 14,000 students.

When registration opened for online courses earlier this year, he expected 1,000 students to join, however, “We got 10,000,” he said.

“It was really, for me, shocking because, just imagine: you live in a tent, you have no electricity, you have no internet. You have nothing at all.

“But you still have the hope to go to sign up for online courses and to walk for five (kilometres) to get an internet connection and even to communicate, to sit and study. And sometimes you risk your life even while you are searching for the internet.”

Trying to work in two different time zones makes the professor’s personal schedule “stressful,” he said.

He got up at 3 am one day last month to attend a workshop on Gaza’s food system, which was preceded by 6 am Al-Azhar board meeting.

After that, he went to his office in Toronto to get ready to give a guest lecture about the war in Gaza.

He records and uploads lectures for his Palestinian pupils on the weekends and at night.

Considering the difficulties with internet connection, Shaban stated the study plan is flexible. When they have access to the internet, students view lectures and finish assignments.

He claimed that despite the fact that all of the labs have been damaged, students in Gaza can be “angry” and “pushy” because they want to know, for instance, when they would be able to do lab work.

“I understand their frustration,” Shaban remarked.

“Sometimes you feel the students are looking at us like we can do things that actually are not doable,” he said. “I have to be responsive in a gentle way."

As agitated student messages pour in, Shaban said he reminds himself that he is living comfortably in a city with electricity and grocery stores stocked with food.

“(I) try just to provide them with whatever support that I can. There are many things that I cannot do,” he said.

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‘Star student’ killed

Students who have died are always front of mind.

He recalled how five engineering students were killed while assembling online to complete an assignment.

Abu Shaban said he will never forget his “star student,” Bilal al-Aish, who, days before the war started, was trying to decide whether to pursue a scholarship in Germany or the American Fulbright.

“I saw the hope in his eyes, not only for his own future, but also the future of our institutions.”

The professor said Aish was killed by an Israeli strike early in the war.

“I got the feeling they are killing the future,” the professor said. “That was really painful for me.”

With inputs from AFP