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For Anne Weyembergh, the case of a group of students and researchers from Gaza unable to travel to Belgium requires urgent action, but is also a stark example of gaps between government rhetoric on academic cooperation and the reality often faced by international scholars, especially those most at risk.
In many conflicts around the world, schools and universities, as well as pupils, students and their teachers, find themselves trapped between warring parties. Too often, they are even deliberately targeted. Unfortunately, examples abound, from Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Ukraine.
New concepts have recently emerged, including ‘educide’ or ‘scholasticide’, to describe the deliberate, massive and systematic destruction of an education system. This encompasses not only the annihilation of educational infrastructure, but also the killing or targeting of academics, intellectuals and students.
This concept has been invoked, including by UN experts, in relation to Gaza. In this Palestinian territory, every university has been struck and most university infrastructure has been destroyed or rendered inoperative, while a very large number of professors, researchers and students have been killed or wounded.
It is against this backdrop that fourteen students and researchers from Gaza are waiting to reach Belgian territory. All have been awarded scholarships to pursue studies or research at Belgian universities (Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Liège, University of Antwerp, KU Leuven, Hasselt University, Ghent University and the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp).
All were selected on the basis of academic merit through highly competitive programmes, but some have now been waiting for more than a year to travel to Belgium to commence their scholarships. These students and researchers even addressed a letter to the Belgian authorities, which was also signed by the rectors of all of Belgium’s universities. In that letter, they reiterated their intention, once their studies or research have been completed, to return to Gaza and contribute to its reconstruction.
All ten Belgian universities, Dutch- and French-speaking alike, stand united and have adopted common positions. Indeed, in a joint letter sent to members of the federal government in June 2026, they highlighted the paradox of awarding scholarships while simultaneously preventing their recipients from reaching Belgium.
Our universities will persist in our efforts to find a solution for these scholars, because what is ultimately at stake is the fundamental right to study, teach and research.
The Belgian government has created two barriers to prevent these students and researchers from entering the country.
The first is the requirement that visa applications be submitted in person at a Belgian consulate. The nearest Belgian consulates are in Cairo and Jerusalem, and, as is widely known, it is impossible for residents of Gaza to leave the territory.
This requirement is also contrary to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU in the Afrin case. Here, the Court explicitly recognised that it is possible for applicants for a visa – in this case a family reunification visa – to apply via e-mail when going to the consulate is too complicated. The judgment was based on the ‘Effet utile’ of EU law. As a consequence, the reasoning is also applicable for visa applications based on the EU’s directive 2016/801, for researchers and students. The court of first instance in Brussels and the court of appeal have confirmed this.
However, the Belgian state refuses to apply this jurisprudence. As a result, every new visa application for a scholarship recipient from Gaza needs to start with a complex and lengthy procedure before the court of first instance (and then often the court of appeal) in order to have the right to apply online, without going to the Belgian consulate in Cairo or Jerusalem.
The second obstacle is the refusal by the Belgian authorities to include these students and researchers, together with their families, in evacuation operations. This refusal is mainly justified by the alleged impracticability of such evacuations.
However, several other European governments, including those of France, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands have successfully implemented measures enabling students and researchers from Gaza to reach their host universities. Discussions have even taken place regarding the possibility of joint evacuation initiatives among EU member states.
Whether legal or practical in nature, the arguments advanced against these evacuations don't withstand scrutiny. What is at play is a matter of political will, as demonstrated by recent inconclusive discussions within the Belgian federal government, following attempts by some coalition parties to make these cases the subject of broader political bargaining on immigration policy.
Fundamentally, these cases reveal the limitations of an approach to migration that is driven by categorical opposition rather than by an assessment of individual circumstances. The students and researchers concerned are not seeking irregular pathways to Europe; they were selected through rigorous and highly competitive academic procedures and received scholarships from recognised institutions, which are eagerly awaiting them.
This approach also disregards the strategic importance of international scientific and educational cooperation. It is all the more difficult to understand given that, at EU and national levels, universities are continuously encouraged to strengthen their international partnerships, attract talented students and researchers and contribute to global knowledge networks.
Refusing access to scholarship recipients who have been selected by Belgian institutions undermines these objectives and damages Belgium’s credibility and commitment to international academic cooperation, as well as to the protection of education in circumstances that have been described by numerous observers and experts as constituting genocide.
More broadly, this case reveals a disconnect between the value governments attach to academic cooperation and the reality for the students and researchers who embody such partnerships. By hampering their mobility, decisions like those of the Belgian government ultimately undermine the university cooperation networks on which scientific exchange and mutual understanding depend, but also the future reconstruction of societies devastated by war.
