From Rubble to Red Bricks: A Gazan Teacher’s Odyssey to Durham

Lost Lessons and Found Sanctuary

It’s a long commute from Deir al-Balah’s shattered rooftops to Durham’s storybook spires — measured not in miles, but in metaphysical light-years. Sana el-Azab, former teacher, current refugee-scholar, newly arrived in a city where the greatest siege is on parking spaces, is still blinking at the contrast. “It’s another planet,” she says. Translation: the air raid sirens here are just cathedral bells.

🦉 Owlyus flaps in: "Durham: where 'crisis management' means running out of scones at afternoon tea."

In June, Sana secured a scholarship to study educational leadership, a field recently rendered theoretical in Gaza, where the concept of a functioning school now ranks alongside unicorns and polite Twitter threads.

From Desks to Dust

Gaza’s universities have been thoroughly repurposed—some into rubble, others into desperate shelters. The main campus of Al-Azhar, Sana’s alma mater, is reportedly reduced to a memory and some very determined cockroaches. Formal education has been on ice for two years; the UN calls it a “lost generation.”

Gazan schools, once purveyors of multiplication tables, are now waystations for the displaced. According to UN and NGO data, 97% have been damaged, and even the remaining 3% have yet to unlock the mythical “safe learning environment” achievement.

🦉 Owlyus, feathers ruffled: "When your school’s ‘open plan’ design is courtesy of an airstrike, you know your syllabus is in trouble."

Nearly 660,000 children are out of school, joined by 87,000 university students in this tragic academic gap year. The UN’s commission of inquiry didn’t mince words: Israel, it reported, has “obliterated Gaza’s education system.”

The Rooftop Academy

Amid the chaos, Sana improvised: a makeshift school, roof optional, curriculum mandatory. She corralled twenty girls (sometimes fifty—attendance was fluid) into an ad hoc classroom. Lessons ranged from English to survival skills, the latter including “how to filter water with charcoal.” Extracurriculars included ‘art therapy under drone surveillance’ and ‘lunch, if available.’

🦉 Owlyus, with existential dread: "Nothing says ‘field trip’ like learning to dodge rubble on your way to class."

For children who’d traded hopscotch for queueing for water, Sana’s school offered a fragile semblance of normalcy. Why bother with the curriculum? Because, as she put it, “it’s not easy to teach hungry kids”—but it’s even harder to teach hopeless ones.

Exodus and Arrival

Leaving was both triumph and trial. Sana was allowed to take just her phone and the clothes on her back — a travel tip not recommended by lifestyle bloggers. She describes her emotions as a cocktail: one part pride, two parts guilt, shaken by anxiety, garnished with relief.

She is one of 58 Gazan students now distributed across the UK’s universities, after a bureaucratic obstacle course that would test the patience of Job. More students wait in limbo, their futures dependent on paperwork, politics, and the occasional miracle.

🦉 Owlyus squawks: "British immigration: because nothing says ‘welcome’ like a biometric scavenger hunt."

The Scholar in Exile

In Durham, Sana finds herself in a land of abundance, where the bread aisle is less a necessity and more a carb catwalk. She marvels at safety, struggles to sleep, and admits half her mind lingers in Gaza. Education is her sanctuary — and, perhaps, her future export.

Her ambition? To return and rebuild. Not for herself, but for those left behind in the dust and data outages. For now, she walks Durham’s leafy lanes, grateful for the peace, haunted by memories, and determined to bring change home — textbook in one hand, hope in the other.

🦉 Owlyus, with a final hoot: "May her next lesson plan require only pencils, not survival skills."