Ambulances carrying Palestinians seeking treatment outside of the Gaza Strip line up at the Rafah border crossing during a brief opening of the only passage between Gaza and the outside world. (Maan Images)

Born into a place of poverty and conflict, Zohair Abu Shaban, 24, has one clear ambition that would raise him above the hardship around him: he wants to be a professor of electrical engineering.

For most young men born and raised in Gaza City, in the heart of the apparently intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, this might seen an impossible dream. No university in Gaza offers any degree above undergraduate level and only the strip's top university, the Islamic University, runs an electrical engineering course.

Abu Shaban, a well-mannered and diligent young man, took the course and graduated top in his year. He won awards for his work, which included a project to allow heart patients to be monitored at home through an internet link to their local hospital.

He applied to continue his studies abroad and won a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study for a masters at the University of Connecticut, in the United States. But to take up his place he had first to get out of Gaza, and that long and difficult challenge has all but undone his dream.

Last year, Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity" after Hamas, the Islamist movement that won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, seized full control of the strip. Israel closed the crossings out of Gaza and students such as Abu Shaban were unable to leave. In May, the US state department told the seven Fulbright scholars from Gaza that their scholarships had been cancelled, before an embarrassed Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, intervened.

In the end, three of the seven reached the US and began studying. A fourth had his US visa revoked on arrival in Washington, apparently because Israel had passed on unspecified security warnings, and two others, including Abu Shaban, remained in Gaza with their US visas cancelled, again for unspecified reasons.

	Related Stories
	Israel turn Gaza into prison for Fulbright scholar Blocking a Gazan's path to San Diego Running for the right to play

Abu Shaban has no political affiliations, no criminal record. Frustrated but not deterred, he won a place to begin a masters degree at Imperial College in London and has been told to arrive for his course by next Saturday. He won another full scholarship, this time from the Hani Qaddumi Foundation, a Palestinian group that supports bright young students, and he obtained a British visa.

However, Israel still refuses to allow him to cross out of Gaza through Erez, the only crossing for people into Israel. Rafah, which is on the Egyptian border and is the only other non-commercial crossing out of Gaza, is closed.

"Students are the future of this country and if you don't give them the chance to learn, this country will have no future," he said. "Peace only comes from education and if you steal education from the youth, I don't know what future there is."

Rafah has been closed since June last year because of Egyptian concerns over Hamas and pressure from others, including both Israel and the Palestinian government in the West Bank, the rival to Hamas. Hamas has called for Rafah to be reopened and has said it will allow European border monitors to return, but insists Israel should not have a veto over the crossing's opening, as it did in the past under a US-negotiated agreement.

To read the full article please visit The Guardian.