Amid Tent Life and Loss, Gaza Girl Pursues High School Exam Dream

Gaza Strip – Amid the makeshift tent life in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, 18-year-old Dana Shabat has just gone through one of the most important weeks of her life: the high school graduation exam (tawjihi).

Dana has been an outstanding student with an average never below 99%, but she remains deeply anxious. For her, this exam will decide her future, opening doors to fields like medicine, finance, or business administration, and more importantly, securing a scholarship to study abroad and build a life far from the hardships she has endured in Gaza.

Dana has lived through more than two and a half years of Israel's war on Gaza. She survived an airstrike in May last year, but her mother, Lina, was killed in that attack — one of more than 73,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023.

Before the war, her family lived in Beit Hanoon, northern Gaza, but the area is now largely flattened. Dana and her surviving relatives now live in a tent in Deir el-Balah.

With most schools in Gaza destroyed or used as shelters for the displaced, Dana has been forced to study remotely and take exams online. Every day, she wakes up before dawn and walks an hour to a rare café with a stable internet connection.

“I never imagined the most important phase of my life would happen like this,” Dana told Al Jazeera as she and her father, Muhanna, began their walk. “Losing three years of schooling wasn't enough — I had to teach myself all subjects, and now even going to take the exam has become a source of worry and stress.”

Dana is among 37,000 Palestinian students taking the tawjihi exam, held for the first time in coordination between the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank since the war broke out. However, while students in the West Bank take the exam at school, all Gaza test-takers must do it online.

During the physics exam — a subject she is not strong in — Dana said: “This subject demands high concentration, but I studied entirely on my own with the help of a few tutoring sessions and YouTube videos.”

Arriving early, Dana still found dozens of other students already at the café. At exactly 9 a.m., they quietly sat at tables, unlocked their phones, and waited for the online exam portal to open. Each student checked the internet connection, while Dana's father conferred with the café owner about the power supply. Then he stepped outside to wait with other parents.

“I have spent every financial resource I can to help Dana get through this decisive school year,” said Muhanna, a former chemistry teacher before the war. “Despite the difficult circumstances, I sacrifice other household needs to pay for tutors to explain the subjects she finds challenging.”

But now, academic success lies in Dana's hands. Muhanna recalled life before the war: “Our life was wonderful. We had a beautiful home, stability, and my wife and I always made sure our daughters had everything they needed. Now it's all gone.”

Dana and her older sister Hala — a first-year medical student — help care for their three younger sisters: Rama, Sarah, and Alma. Alma, only three years old, lost her right eye in the attack that killed her mother. “Their mother was highly educated and deeply believed in the value of learning. If she were still here, she would be heartbroken to see how her children's lives have turned out,” Muhanna said.

Two hours after entering the café, Dana walked out. “How was the exam? Was it difficult?” her father asked immediately. “Everything is fine. The questions were fair. This time the internet worked well, luckily it didn’t cut out like last time,” Dana replied. She said goodbye to friends and began the long walk back to the tent, where her younger sisters and neighbors were waiting.

Before resting, Dana had to take both her and her father's smartphones to a charging station to prepare for the next day's exam. The lack of electricity is a major challenge, but Dana — like hundreds of thousands of others in Gaza — has had to adapt.

Eight months after the ceasefire with Israel, reconstruction remains distant, and Israeli attacks still occur sporadically. Dana doesn't know when she might be able to return to Beit Hanoon, if ever. She also doesn't know how much longer she will have to live in a tent.

But she still dreams of the future — becoming a community leader, learning foreign languages, excelling in whatever field she chooses, and above all, being safe and making her mother proud. “I hope the suffering in these tents will finally end, and I will become the successful person my mother always wanted me to be,” Dana said.