Gazan medical student's UK studies 'life-changing'

Shahd Alhajjar said she wanted to return to Gaza once her training was complete

A medical student who fled her home in Gaza says being able to continue her studies in the UK has been "life-changing".

Shahd Alhajjar, 22, who was accepted on to a programme at Aston University in Birmingham, said studying at home had become "incredibly challenging", forcing her to leave 18 months ago.

She has just started a practical placement at a GP surgery in Wednesbury and when that ends in January, Ms Alhajjar plans to travel to Pakistan to continue her training.

Her eventual aim is to return to Gaza, to try to make a difference there, and said focusing on medicine had kept her going.

Ms Alhajjar left Gaza in October 2023 and fled first to Russia and then to Egypt.

"I had to leave Gaza with this uncertainty about my future, with also a huge amount of stress about my family," she said.

She later arrived in the UK, after winning a surgical skills competition run by the University of Oxford.

She was one of seven students selected out of 700 applications and that led to being offered a place on a university-funded programme at Aston Medical school.

Ms Alhajjar said her father was also a doctor and had inspired her to train.

"Medicine right now is the thing that is keeping me going," she said.

"Coming back to student life, it makes me realise how much that I've lost, not being a student."

Dr Shahid Merali said medical students in Gaza had not been able to complete their studies

The university programme aims to help students from regions of conflict and natural disasters.

Dr Shahid Merali, Clinical Associate Professor at Aston Medical School, said: "The hospitals [in Gaza] are damaged, doctors are displaced or killed and the very people, the medical students who are going to fill their shoes and then support those patients after - they can't complete their learning because their universities are damaged."

Training that was completed in Gaza is being accepted by the Aston University programme and Ms Alhajjar is now in the fourth year of her studies.

Elaine Millard, a practice manager at Darlaston Family Practice, has been impressed with the student during her time there.

Ms Millard said: "To think what she's been through and to achieve what she's achieved.

"She has been exemplary in how she's handled the traumas that she's been through and has come out and is forever smiling."

Ms Alhajjar said she hoped to return home one day and make an important contribution.

"It gives me hope, seeing how much difference a doctor can make in people's lives, especially in a place like my home town," she said.

War broke out in Gaza after Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in that attack.

Israel responded and more than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A US-led peace plan last month brought a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in their two-year war.