Israel blocks Gaza students from studying abroad

Yasmin Abukwaik, 22, joined the thousands who fled Gaza before the breach was sealed and now studies X-ray technology in the United Arab Emirates. Her sister Hadeel, a 23-year-old software engineering instructor, took a risk and stayed so she could qualify for one of the few Fulbright grants for Gaza residents to study this fall in the United States.

The young women's divergent paths illustrate the increasingly slim odds for Gazans seeking Israeli clearance to study abroad. Few succeed. The rest, including hundreds who have earned scholarships in the West, are frustrated by Israel's policy of isolating the coastal enclave, which is run by the militant group Hamas.

On Thursday the elder Abukwaik sister was told that her gamble had not paid off. The U.S. State Department notified her and six other Palestinians that it was withdrawing their Fulbright grants because Israel had not given them permission to leave Gaza.

But the news took Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by surprise, and Friday the State Department said it was reviewing the decision and urging Israel to allow the seven students to travel to the United States. The Fulbright is the U.S. government's leading program in international educational exchange.

"I have sacrificed a lot for my dream," Hadeel Abukwaik said in a telephone interview from Gaza City. "I am troubled, angry, confused. If this decision is not changed, what will I do? Wait in Gaza another year with no guarantee of getting out?"

Since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the more secular Fatah party last June, Israel has all but closed its Gaza border crossings in an attempt to weaken the group and end frequent rocket barrages aimed at Israeli towns. Egypt, Gaza's other neighbor, has cooperated with Israel to keep 1.5 million Palestinians enclosed in the tiny, impoverished strip.

Of the more than 1,000 Gazans who applied, Israel allowed 480 to leave for study abroad during the 2007-08 academic year, according to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates freer movement of Palestinians. Israel stopped granting such permissions altogether in January.