Editor’s note: This is a text conversation between Amgad Al-Mahalawi, who formerly worked for Al-Najd Developmental Forum and Doug Hostetter, former director of MCC’s United Nations office. Other updates from Amgad Al-Mahalawi appeared on August 11, September 2 and October 20.

Amgad: Today is a wonderful day (November 13)! My youngest sister, Salsabeel (19), just learned that she had passed her high school exams with a 95.4 % average. She hopes this high score will enable her to study abroad and become a doctor.

My siblings and I bought sweets and distributed them to all our friends, relatives and neighbors.

Doug: How did she study for the exam? There has been a war, and no school has been able to function in Gaza for the past two years. She must be an amazing person! 

Amgad: Okay, I hope she can get a scholarship abroad, the Israelis have destroyed all our universities in Gaza, and she wants to become a doctor.

Doug: I can’t make any promises, but I’m sure there will be people inspired to try to help make that possible.

Amgad: Salsabeel (17) had just begun her senior year in high school in September 2023 and was preparing herself to be among the top students in the Gaza Strip. Her biggest supporter was her older sister Sumaya. When the war broke out in October, the fighting spread to Gaza City where our family lived, and Salsabeel took her schoolbooks and laptop with her as our family moved from place to place and from school to school, fleeing Israeli tanks until we settled into a third-floor classroom in the Umar bin Aas School in Gaza City. 

We were safe there for a few weeks until the school was hit by Israeli bombs and tank shells in November 2023.  In that attack, many in our family were killed and even more wounded. Salsabeel lost her father and an older brother, an aunt, and her older sister Sumaya, who had been her mentor.  The other loss in that attack was the family laptop computer, which was shattered by shrapnel. 

Salsabeel was seriously wounded on her head and chest with additional injuries to her face. Salsabeel and all her wounded and dead family members were taken to the the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. When that hospital was besieged by the Israelis, Salsabeel and her other wounded relatives fled to Gaza City that night, and the next morning they fled to the European Hospital in Southern Gaza. 

After a month-and-a-half in the European Hospital, the Israeli military surrounded the European Hospital and forced the evacuation of all staff and patients. Our family fled with her to Rafah, where we built a tent for the family.  My brother, Abdulkarim, is a nurse and took care of her even though he was also suffering from his own neck wounds. Those were the hardest days for her and for me.

As soon as she was well enough, she used every spare moment to study. I would charge her phone every day so she could study on it at night in our tent. I bought her food and things to eat so she would have energy enough to stay up late to read.  I would buy her paper, pens and books. The Ministry of Education in Gaza had no online classes, so every day I would download lessons and videos from the internet for her to learn from.  We would buy used paper, when we could find it in the market, so she could use the back to write on. When there was no used paper, we found cardboard for her to write on.

After the ceasefire in January 2025, our family returned to our partially destroyed home in Gaza City where we were working to repair our home and prepared a place for Salsabeel to study until the exam was announced. The Gaza Ministry of Education scheduled the online high school completion exam on September 6^th for students who would have finished their high school in the spring of 2024.  Salsabeel was determined to do well on the exam.

On March 18, 2025, before the exam could be administered, the Israelis broke the ceasefire and started bombing Gaza again.  We tried to stay at our home, but the Israelis started to systematically destroy Gaza City, block by block.  When they got our area, we moved a few blocks away to my father-in-law’s house; when they came to that area, we moved to an abandoned factory.  I finally decided it was too dangerous and that I needed to take my wife and children to central Gaza for safety.  

But Salsabeel and some of my other siblings said, “Go, you need to protect your children, but we will stay.” If Salsabeel had left, she would miss the exam, which would register as failed. She chose to stay, despite the destruction and the bombing of six houses in our area and the killing of our neighbors. She took the exam online on September 6^th while at our home.  The next day, she, her mother and my siblings fled to our uncle’s house in eastern Gaza City. They were besieged there, and then they escaped to the beach. Their homes were destroyed, but she took the exam!

After the exam, students had to link their mobile phone numbers to the exam website.  When the Israelis cut the internet, Salsabeel started crying, fearing that she would now lose the results of the exam.  A month later, however, the Ministry of Education told students who had lost their link because the internet was down would be provided with a new link to receive the results. Today, the results were announced. There was great joy, but also great sadness because so many of our family are no longer with us to share our happiness.