From ruins to resilience: Gazan medical students triumph against adversity in South Africa

Zohra Sooliman. (Photo: Supplied)

14 May 2025

Twenty-seven students from Gaza will be heading back home after arriving in 2024 to complete their practicals for medical studies at UCT and Wits university following the destruction of their medical schools during the Gaza war.

Twenty-seven final-year medical students from Al-Azhar University and Islamic University in Gaza were displaced from their universities after they were destroyed by Israeli missiles. But the students turned tragedy to triumph and have managed to complete their studies through the University of Cape Town (UCT, 25) and University of the Witswatersand (Wits, 2).

The students arrived in South Africa in 2024 to complete their medical studies in order to graduate. Most of the students managed to escape to Egypt through the Rafa border to get to South Africa. Their faculty deans had made arrangements with universities in South Africa to help the students complete their studies.

On 3 May 2025, Gift of the Givers, a non-profit organisation, bade farewell to the students at UCT after a dinner was held to celebrate their milestone after facing hardship and defying the odds by completing their studies despite being away from their families in Gaza for months.

Gift of the Givers co-founder Zohra Sooliman told Daily Maverick that many doctors had been killed and hospitals were being targeted during the war in Gaza, and that these students would be the future when the war ended. She said the organisation approached donors and sponsors to fund the students, who then ended up staying at a nearby accommodation to the UCT campus and hospital. However, Sooliman says they faced a big challenge.

The students at UCT two months after their arrival from Gaza. (Photo: Supplied)

Gift of the Givers co-founder Zohra Sooliman. (Photo: Supplied)

“The practical part they were going to do, they did that for all the hospitals in Cape Town and the clinics. But the theory part for the final year, they were still doing online with their home university, and that was a challenge for them. For example, in theory they’d probably be doing something like surgery, but in the hospitals in Cape Town they were probably doing their obstetrics and gynaecology,” said Sooliman.

“When they came here, it was a whole adjustment. We speak 11 languages in our country. We are a rainbow nation made up of so many different things such as race groups, ethnicity, culture. We are so different, and for them coming from a country where there’s a homogeneous society, it was new,” she said.

Missing families in Gaza

Sooliman said that it was not easy for the students because they felt guilty for leaving their families behind while they were safe studying in South Africa.

“At the back of their minds was a consistent worry about the safety of their families, whether they were being fed, out there in the cold… They suffered from a guilt complex, where they were feeling guilty that they were fine but their families were not,” said Sooliman.

Read more: ‘Beyond catastrophic’ — conditions worsen in Gaza as Israel continues aid blockade

However, despite the difficulties faced by the students, Sooliman said they showed determination and courage to complete their studies in a foreign country. At their celebration and farewell day, the students wore graduation gowns and hoods sporting Palestinian colours; on the scrolls was an oath that the students took that was presented by the Islamic Medical Association of South Africa.

“So for me it was not just about achieving a degree academically. It was much more than that. For me it was a show of determination, perseverance, patience, strength, courage and resilience. Despite everything they pushed through, and that’s why I am so proud of them,” said Sooliman.

The students have few theory exams left, but they have completed their practicals. According to Sooliman, some have left the country already and a few will depart for Gaza in the coming days. DM

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Missing families in Gaza