From Gaza to Palermo to graduate, the dream of Yousef and Kholud

For them, their arrival in Palermo is a dream come true, long awaited, and also a hope for a better future. Yousef Asqool, 31, and the young Kholoud Abudaqqa, 23, two of the six Palestinian students benefiting from a scholarship that is part of the initiatives launched by the university in cooperation with the Conference of Italian University Chancellors, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Universities and Research, were welcomed with joy this morning by the Rector of the University of Palermo, Massimo Midiri, on their arrival at Palazzo Steri.

The first will undertake a master's degree in tourism system and hospitality management, the second a three-year degree in nature and environmental sciences. Four other Palestinian students will arrive in Palermo in the coming months, as soon as they obtain their visas. The two young men come from Gaza, where eleven universities have been razed to the ground due to the war and studying is done remotely, online, with hardship. Yousef had been admitted to the course last July but only a few weeks ago he got a pass to come to Italia. "I have waited so long for this moment,' he says, moved. 'In my city, you can only taste death, in the alleys, in the streets. Survival is pure luck. My family is still there, I have three brothers and three sisters, my father died six years ago. In Gaza unfortunately everything is difficult, wherever you go you are not safe, death passes around you, always. We hear sirens, gunfire, drones, missiles, people screaming and children calling for help. It is a silence, that of death, which becomes louder than any sound. One of my cousins and some of my best friends are gone today. In Gaza you go to sleep at night not knowing if you will wake up alive the next day'.

Kholoud is eager to 'start all over again here in Palermo,' he explains, 'with a new life. Even if part of my heart remains there, where my family still lives: my parents, two sisters and two brothers'. She will stay in a room provided by the Gancia convent, he in a private home. Both will start an Italian language school for foreigners and can already begin attending their respective courses in the coming days, although the academic year will officially begin in September.

"We are working on the establishment of university residences that can accommodate foreign students, disengaged from the Ersu system," says Massimo Midiri, rector of Unipa. "So a new path of peace and solidarity towards Palestinian students in Gaza is starting in Palermo, thus lifting them out of hell. The scholarships are around 10,000 euro for each student'.