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Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip This week has been the most important in 18-year-old Dana Shabat’s life: her high school graduation exams.
Dana is an exceptional student – her grade point average has never dropped below the 99th percentile – but she is still nervous.
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The test, in Dana’s eyes, will be decisive in defining his future. He doesn’t know what he will study at university – which is between medicine, economics, and business administration – but he hopes to do well to get an education abroad and make a future far away. difficulties He has endured in Gaza.
Dana has lived through more than two and a half years of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. He survived an Israeli strike in May last year, but his mother, Lina, was killed in the attack – one of more than 73,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023.
He grew up in Beit Hanoon, north of Gaza, but this area is many were destroyed by the Israeli armyand now he and the rest of his family live in a tent in central Gaza in Deir el-Balah.
Many schools in Gaza were destroyed by the Israeli attack, or used as refugee campsDana was forced to continue her studies far away. Tests – known as tawjihi – are no different.
This week may be important, but Dana will be waking up every day before dawn, walking for an hour, and getting a seat in one of the few restaurants that she can count on to have enough internet to take an online test.
“I never thought that the most important part of my life would look like this,” Dana tells Al Jazeera, as she walks with her father, Muhanna. “Losing three years of education was not enough. I had to teach myself every subject, and now even taking the exam has become another source of anxiety and stress.”
Exam time
Dana is one of 37,000 Palestinian students taking the tawjihi exam. This is the first time that the tests have been carried out in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
In the West Bank, however, unlike in Gaza, students are taking tests in schools and study centers. Students in Gaza are all taking exams online.
Dana is preparing for her physics test today. It is not a subject that they consider easy.
The schoolgirl said: “It requires a lot of attention, but I learned it myself with the help of several private sessions and YouTube videos.
Even after starting, Dana arrives at the cafeteria and finds that there are many other students.
At 9am, the official exam time, students sit quietly at separate tables and open their phones, while they take the exam, waiting for the online test page to open.
Each student checks their internet connection, while Dana’s father checks with the cafe owner that the electricity is working properly.
Then they go to wait outside with other parents.
“I have given all the money I have to help Dana endure this important year,” says Muhanna, who was a chemistry teacher before the war. Even though we were facing difficulties, I gave up some household items so that I could pay private tutors to explain the issues they were struggling with.”
But Muhanna has now done her best, and Dana’s academic success is in her hands. It is in these moments that they think about their past life, before the war.
“Our life was fun,” he recalls. We had a beautiful, stable home, and my wife and I were making sure our daughters had everything they needed.”
“Now, all that is over,” he continues. “We live in tents without basic necessities, and the students are going through the most difficult part of their lives in conditions that no one should have to endure.”
Muhanna explains that Dana, along with her older sister Hala – a first-year medical student, are now helping to take care of their three younger sisters – Rama, Sarah, and Alma – in their mother’s absence. Alma, who was only three years old, lost her right eye in the attack that killed Lina.
“Their mother was very educated and believed strongly in the importance of learning,” says Muhanna, her voice muffled. My daughters did not know how to cook because their mother wanted them to devote all their energy to their studies.
“If he were here today, he would be very upset to see what happened to his daughters.”
Dreams
Two hours after entering the cafe, Dana came out.
“How was the test? Was it difficult?” his father asks immediately.
Dana replies: “Everything went well.”
“The internet was good this time too.” Fortunately, the connection didn’t drop, as it did during my previous tests,” he added, before saying goodbye to his friends and starting the long walk back to the family’s tent.
There he was greeted by his sisters, eager to hear how the exam went. Neighbors and relatives who live in the camp also visit and ask him how he is doing.
But before she can rest, Dana sends her phone and her father’s phone to the charger to prepare for the next test.
The lack of electricity is a big problem, but Dana – like hundreds of thousands of others in Gaza – had to change.
Right now there are many problems. Eight months after the end of the war with Israel, reconstruction still seems distant, and Israeli attacks continue from time to time. Dana doesn’t know when she will return to Beit Hanoon – if ever. And they don’t know how long they will be in the tent.
But they still yearn for the future. He explains that he wants to be a leader of the people, someone who inspires interest. They want to learn languages and excel in whatever they choose.
And in the end, he wants to be safe and make his mother proud.
“I hope that our suffering in these tents will finally end,” says Dana, “and that I will be the successful person that my mother always wanted me to be.”
