- Burdened with suspended dreams.
Rawan M. H. Shaat
Three years suspended in the same place- while everyone and everything moves forward, I remain here, unable to take even a single step ahead. That’s all what I feel despite all the efforts I exert—whether in my studies or in trying to salvage what remains of me amid all this chaos and a war that has spared no one.
I had always dreamed of studying in Europe after graduating from high school. That dream was what drove me to work relentlessly throughout those years. I longed for a dignified and expansive education—one unconstrained by the limitations of a besieged land, deprived of the resources needed to satisfy my scientific curiosity.
I graduated from high school with a 92.1% average in the scientific stream. I still vividly remember the pride and joy my family felt at the time, and my own overwhelming excitement as I prepared myself to continue my educational journey abroad.
That moment became my first—and harshest—lesson: not everything we strive for comes to us in the way we imagine or wish. The circumstances, at the time, did not allow me to leave, and I fell into deep disappointment. Yet I did not give up on that dream. Instead, I decided to work as hard as I could in my studies at home until an opportunity to continue abroad might present itself.
I enrolled at Al-Israa University in Gaza, majoring in Artificial Intelligence Engineering. I attended university for only two weeks before something happened that had not even crossed my mind in the worst of scenarios: war.
October 7, 2023 marked a profound turning point in the life of every Gazan. Each of us carries a story. As for me—Rawan Marwan Shaat—my story is that I believed all my postponed dreams had slipped through my fingers. I felt as though I had lost myself. I set those dreams aside for long months, not even having the time to think about them. My mind was no longer occupied with how to survive amid all this death, for survival itself was never in my hands—there was no option but luck, or perhaps fate. What consumed me instead were questions: Why did all of this happen? Why now, just as I had begun to accept a new, unexpected course for my life? Why did everything collapse so suddenly?
Even surrender was not a choice—it was imposed upon me.
At the beginning of the war, I was occupied with the people who had become my friends during displacement. We lived together in the same house, believing it to be in a less dangerous area. Eventually, we fled it and scattered, driven apart by the relentless bombardment of the neighborhood and the forced evacuation of all its residents. I was displaced eight times, and each time the same scene repeated itself. Endless images of shelling, death, displacement, and famine surrounded us. I lived through the very worst scenario I had imagined in the first week of the war: losing my home and living in a tent that shows no mercy—neither in the suffocating heat of summer nor in the bitter cold of winter.
These were nothing but attempts at survival. Yet after some time, I became painfully aware of time slipping away, of my life being consumed without purpose. I believed the war might never end, and that I had to try to reclaim at least a fragment of myself beneath the weight of genocide and famine bearing down on us.
Amid the spread of disease throughout Gaza during the war, and the deaths of many patients with genetic illnesses—such as cancer—due to the lack of proper treatment and the impossibility of traveling abroad for care while border crossings remained closed, the shadow of an old dream resurfaced. When I began to reflect on my educational path, interrupted by the war, that long-suspended dream returned to me. I had once wanted to become a researcher in science and medicine. However, the changing course of life and its growing turn toward artificial intelligence had drawn me slightly away from that path. Another fundamental reason was my desire to specialize in genetic engineering, a field unavailable in Gaza due to the siege and the severe lack of resources and equipment needed to thrive in it.
When my desire to search again for the life I wanted returned, I decided to carve my way toward studying science. I began applying for scholarships, facing rejection at first. I accepted it, knowing I was still a beginner in these matters and had no one to guide me. All my attempts were made with very little hope—pessimism had become my default outlook as a result of the traumas of war.
During that time, universities began offering online study. I rejected the idea entirely. I could not accept that my bachelor’s journey would be virtual. How could I extinguish the passion for a university experience I had not yet even lived? I insisted on not pursuing an online bachelor’s degree, despite intense pressure from my family and everyone around me not to waste my life waiting for what they called “illusory dreams.” But for me, this was a matter of life or death—not merely rosy fantasies.
That did not mean I stopped learning. Throughout this period, I took online courses in artificial intelligence, programming, and design, strengthening my technological background and preparing to integrate it with the scientific field whenever the opportunity arose to continue my studies.
Not all my applications ended in failure. I received an unconditional offer from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom to study Cellular and Molecular Biology (with Biotechnology), along with a partial scholarship. I also received two conditional offers from the Universities of Bristol and Manchester, each with partial scholarships as well. However, due to the severe conditions in Gaza, I am unable to cover the remaining tuition fees and living expenses. This has become yet another chapter of struggle in my ongoing search for a scholarship or an organization willing to support students like me.
Despite the difficulty of accessing electricity and the internet, I continue to try. Whenever the constraints of displacement allow, I go to a workspace created for students and remote workers, where internet and electricity are sometimes available—if luck is on our side and the sky is clear; as electricity here now depends on solar power. Every day, I search for more opportunities to pull myself out of this senseless chaos.
I write about this journey—one that has not yet ended—to remind myself and others not to expect reality to be kind, and to remember that we are not always responsible for the course our lives take. I do not accept this bitter reality, nor do I know whether clinging to my desire to grow amid piles of destruction is the right choice. But a dear friend once told me that my refusal to accept this reality is what will save me one day—and I chose to believe him. Our attempts to hold on to the desires of the past are not mere illusory dreams, as some claim; they are a lifeline, reminding us of who we are beyond the boundaries of suffering.
