The new academic year in Belgium is starting soon, but 13 Palestinian students and researchers who received scholarships to study at Belgian universities are unable to leave Gaza. They are asking Belgium to evacuate them, but the case has come to a complete standstill.
Despite countless emails from the students and their universities, numerous headlines, open letters, a petition signed by thousands of people, and even a nudge from the King, the Federal Government has not moved to evacuate the students.
"We are trapped inside a war zone with no safe way to leave," Salwa Abu ElHaj, 23, told The Brussels Times.
Despite sometimes having to walk more than an hour to find a stable internet connection to complete her exams, she obtained her Bachelor's degree in Business Administration in October 2025, ranking first in her cohort.
Stuck in a war zone
She was accepted into the Master of Communication Sciences at KU Leuven, which starts on 16 September, and received a full scholarship. To get to Belgium, however, she needs a visa.
Belgium requires international students to apply for their visas at a consulate or embassy in person. Gaza, however, has no Belgian diplomatic mission where visa applications can be made, and leaving Gaza to apply from another country is not possible without a visa.
This leaves the 13 students and researchers trapped between two impossible options, but Abu ElHaj is quick to point out that the students' most urgent problem is not their visas, but the fact that they cannot leave Gaza.
"Even if Belgium granted us visas tomorrow, nothing would change if we still could not leave Gaza," she said.
Credit: Salwa Abu ElHaj
Belgium's Federal Government previously agreed to allow medical evacuation (carried out by the World Health Organisation) to go ahead without any issues. Between October 2023 and December 2025, this route led to thousands of Gaza residents coming to Belgium.
The last evacuation at that time involved people who were granted a visa by Belgium. Since then, no more evacuations were carried out until earlier this week: on Monday, three children and six accompanying adults (parents and other family members) were evacuated from Gaza to Belgium.
"We are grateful that these evacuations were possible, but for us this also raises the question of whether a practical humanitarian pathway could be established for students who already have confirmed academic destinations in Belgium," said Abu ElHaj.
Left-right divide
However, finding an agreement on non-medical evacuations – which includes those involving the 13 students and researchers – is proving much more difficult for the Federal Government.
Like many other issues that Prime Minister Bart De Wever's Federal Government is struggling with, the topic of non-medical evacuations from Gaza is once again highlighting the stark left-right divide within the majority.
The Prime Minister's N-VA (Flemish nationalists) and MR (Francophone liberals) are against the evacuations, while Vooruit (Flemish socialists) and Les Engagés (Francophone centrists) are in favour. Meanwhile, CD&V (Flemish Christian-Democrats) feel that the issue should at least be discussed.
However, the pressure is rising. Other European countries, including the Netherlands and Italy, have been evacuating students for a while, and France last week evacuated 44 students and researchers as well.
Credit: Essam Abu Amro
A particularly urgent case is that of Essam Abu Amro, 26, a Palestinian student who received a VLIR-UOS scholarship for a Master of Science in Sustainable Land Management at Ghent University, but has been stranded in Gaza since last year.
He received the offer in June 2025, with his first semester due to start on 1 September last year. As he was unable to obtain a visa, Ghent University deferred the scholarship by a year.
"Now, I am facing the same visa procedure and the same refusal, with the new academic year already starting and no indication that the scholarship can be deferred again," Abu Amro told The Brussels Times.
In 2023, he began a Master's degree in Water Engineering but was unable to complete it because of the destruction of the university facilities where he studied, the ongoing internet and electricity disruptions, and the broader impact of the war.
"I want to pursue this Master's in Water Engineering because Gaza's water infrastructure – including wells and desalination plants, the Strip's main water sources – has been severely damaged by the war," Abu Amro said. "There is an urgent need for trained experts to help rebuild safe, dignified access to water for the people of Gaza."
Involving the Belgian king
In the meantime, the situation in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been carrying out air strikes despite the so-called "ceasefire", remains dangerous and unstable.
Back in July, even Belgium's King Philippe raised the issue with the Federal Government after he received a letter from one of the students, Ahmad Abu Jami, 28, who was awarded a scholarship by the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp earlier this year, but is also stuck in Gaza.
"What has become increasingly clear to us is that preventing us from coming to Belgium is a political decision, rather than something that is simply dictated by the security situation in Gaza," Abu Jami told The Brussels Times.
"We need all the support we can get to (...) reach our studies before we lose these opportunities," he said. "We have done everything we could from our side. At this point, we need the government to give us a chance."
Credit: Ahmed Talat Abu Jami
In a written reply to Abu Jami, seen by The Brussels Times, the King said that he had raised the matter with Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot (Les Engagés).
Prévot's office confirmed to The Brussels Times that the minister will put the issue on the table during the next core cabinet meeting (the Prime Minister and his five deputy PMs) convened by De Wever.
As De Wever is currently on an official three-day visit to India, this will not happen during the usual Friday meeting. Instead, the case is expected to be discussed next week at the earliest.
"If the days and weeks continue to pass without a solution, I may reach the point where losing my scholarship becomes unavoidable," said Abu ElHaj. "I will lose it because I was born in Gaza and cannot leave a war zone on my own. And that is the part I find hardest to accept."
"I have done everything that was within my power," she said. "And now, what remains is no longer in my hands."
