During a Social Development Forum (SDF) training session in Gaza, Hassan Abo Qamar (center) and his Tawjihi classmates are surprised with a celebration recognizing our hard work and achievements. Photo: SDF media team

For more than two years, my generation—those of us born in 2006—watched time pass without the chance to sit for the Tawjihi exams, the final year of high school and one of the most important milestones in a student’s life.

Not being able to take Tawjihi turned the war into two wars: one of bombing, genocide, and famine, and another psychological, filled with the feeling of helplessness. Without graduating from high school, you cannot volunteer to help your community, and you cannot chase your dreams.

Scholarships on offer to our generation—such as those in universities in Turkey, Russia, Ireland, and the UK—were out of reach. We watched while our peers, in the West Bank and in the Arab world beyond, pursued their ambitions.

We were running from death that chased us, and running from the fact that we were powerless.

A glimmer of hope appeared in September 2025. The Ministry of Education finally announced an opportunity for the students of 2006. It was a “life chance.” For the first time, the ministry would allow us to take our exams online.

Over the course of a week and a half, students sat for the eight Tawjihi exams through the Wise School app. The ministry determined both the subject and the exam duration, either one hour or one and a half hours, beginning at 10 a.m. Each day, we sat an exam.

Could all 39,000 of us really sit for the exams in the chaos of war?

Gaza is never without problems: internet outages, electricity cuts, displacement, bombardment are daily obstacles. Hundreds of the 39,000 students couldn’t take part in the exams because of the Israeli army’s order to evacuate Gaza City.

Others, like me, searched each day for places where the internet was strong enough to let us sit for the exams. This was a chance that couldn’t be missed.

Over a period of 10 days, from September 6 to 16, I took my exams, not in a classroom, but in co-working spaces, friends’ homes, and sometimes—if the internet was working—at my own house. I sat my exams wherever I could find electricity, a stable internet connection, and some quiet.

Selfie of Hassan studying for his exams.

Distraction was not an option. We studied despite constant news of displacement and bombardment. Some nights I revised under the dim glow of battery-powered LEDs—a light so weak it gave me a splitting headache. We did not have the luxury of choice.

I was more fortunate than some of my friends. Many did not have the ability to study at night. Some were packing their belongings to evacuate south instead of reviewing lessons. Others were living in tents with no light or electricity.

Yet, despite the hardships, the majority of our 2006 cohort completed the exams. We waited for the results until October 14. At 1 p.m., my family gathered to check the announcement. We were all feeling a mixture of excitement and anxiety. The message arrived: I got 94.6% in the Scientific Stream. Finally, I had graduated from high school!

Congratulations poured in for the next three days—family, friends, and neighbors either came to my home to celebrate with me or called to send their best wishes. When I went to a training session with the Social Development Forum (SDF), where I participate in initiatives that empower young Palestinians to lead change and promote social development, I found a huge celebration waiting for me and my Tawjihi colleagues!

Sadly, all of this happiness is short-lived. The reality is that Tawjihi is only the first step in a long journey to pursue my education. Gaza’s universities have been reduced to rubble so, even before the results were out, my friends—and my whole generation of students—had already begun searching for scholarships at universities abroad.

Many universities have already begun their academic year so we know the chances of acceptance this year are slim, but two years without school have made us realize the true value of education. None of us wants to lose any more.

Life in Gaza has never been easy. Nothing comes effortlessly to a Palestinian; at the same time, nothing is impossible. Perhaps persistence without any certainty of success is what defines us as Palestinians. I hate—and yet also recognize—that cruel kind of hope that keeps pushing us forward without a clear end in sight.

We long for ordinary lives, where we can pursue our education without having to study abroad to chase our dreams, where we have the financial means to support ourselves in any country we wish to study in, and where we can become engineers to develop our city, not just to rebuild it from rubble.

As soon as we had finished our exams, my friend Ahmad and I started searching for universities with scholarship opportunities. We divided the world between us: Each of us looked at a set of countries so that we could maximize our chances for available places and scholarships. We are hoping to secure the right to continue our education and leave Gaza before the end of this year.

Each one of my generation of students is shaped by our own stories. Our experience and vision of the world after witnessing this genocide will define our field of study more than any other factor. Each of us has found a role model or a dream shaped by this war. My friend Hamada wants to study medicine, inspired by Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the pediatrician who was arrested by the Israeli forces and detained without charge in Ofer Prison.

Before this war Ahmad and I intended to study business administration. Now we have decided to pursue engineering degrees. After two years of war, we long to study something that will give us the chance to volunteer, to be useful, and to take part in something bigger than personal ambition. Maybe that chance isn’t yet available to us, but it will come when we are at the forefront of rebuilding Gaza.

I don’t know if we will ever fulfill our dreams. We face a dark and uncertain future where schooling and scholarships are scarce. Yet I know that success is not optional. It is an obligation. And it is a duty: to our friends who were killed before they had the chance to take these exams; to the imprisoned and martyred doctors, engineers, and scholars who were targeted by the occupation; to our homeland, whose people are being deliberately deprived of knowledge; and to every Palestinian child.

The generation of 2006 must be the generation that fights for the chances that have been denied to us. In Gaza, decisions are shaped not only by ambition, but also by trauma and loss.