University professor Ahmed Abu Shaban often wakes up at 3:00 a.m. in Toronto to teach his students in Gaza remotely – motivated by loyalty and a deep sense of guilt towards his trapped students.
Shaaban, the academic who fled Gaza days after October 7, 2023, said he has an obligation to the Palestinian territory’s students who are desperate to study despite unimaginable challenges.
He also said it is his responsibility to help preserve higher education in Gaza while the world focuses on the humanitarian emergency.
But the 50-year-old admitted that the guilt is affecting him too.
“Guilty for leaving Gaza,” he told AFP. “As if we have abandoned our country, our people, our institution.”
Shaaban is still dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Al-Azhar University, which – along with most of the university buildings – was destroyed by Israeli air strikes.
Shaaban moved to Egypt shortly after the war began, he said, anticipating that Israel’s response to a Hamas attack would be “massive.”
Canadian contacts arranged a posting at York University in Toronto, where he is visiting professor in the Faculty of Environment and Urban Change.
In a campus office with empty bookshelves and mostly bare walls, Shaban explained that he feels compelled to help turn al-Azhar around in some way.
He said, “He wanted to send a clear message to the entire world: Yes, they destroyed our infrastructure. Yes, they destroyed our buildings… but we are still alive and we will continue to survive.” “
“This is truly a responsibility to our students, our nation and the future of our independent state.”
– Hunger to read –
Shaaban, who is on the board of Al-Azhar, said that pre-war enrollment was 14,000 students.
When registration for online courses opened earlier this year, they expected 1,000 students to join.
“We got 10,000,” he said.
“It was really, to me, shocking because, just imagine: You live in a tent, you don’t have electricity, you don’t have any internet. You don’t have anything.
“But you are still expected to sign up for online courses and get an internet connection and even walk five (kilometres) to communicate, sit and study. Putting lives at risk.”
Shaban admitted that his personal schedule is “stressful”, as he tries to work in two time zones.
One day last month, he got up at 3:00 a.m. to attend a workshop on Gaza’s food system, before an al-Azhar board meeting at 6:00 a.m. He then went to his Toronto office to prepare a guest lecture on the Gaza War.
In the evenings and weekends he records and uploads lectures for his Palestinian students.
Shaaban said the study program is flexible given the challenges of Internet access. Students watch lectures and complete assignments while online.
– murder of star student –
He said that students in Gaza may be “angry” and “outraged”: for example, they want to know when they will be able to do laboratory work, even if all the laboratories have been destroyed.
Shaaban said he understands their frustration.
“Sometimes you feel like students are looking at us like we can do things that we’re not really supposed to do,” he said. “I have to be responsive in a gentle way.”
As messages from agitated students started pouring in, Shaaban said he reminded himself that he lived comfortably in a city where there was electricity and food available in grocery stores.
He said, “(I) just try to provide them with all the support I can. There are a lot of things I can’t do.”
The students who died are always in the front of the mind.
He remembered the five engineering students who were murdered by an Internet source when they gathered to work on an assignment.
Shaaban said he will never forget his “star student” Bilal Al Aish, who was trying to decide whether to pursue a scholarship to Germany or an American Fulbright just days before the war began.
“I saw hope in their eyes not only for their future, but for the future of our institutions.”
Shaaban said he was killed in an Israeli attack at the beginning of the Aceh war.
“I feel like they’re killing the future,” the professor said. “That was really painful for me.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)