JERUSALEM (AFP) — Seven Palestinian scholars who have received US-funded Fulbright grants may be allowed to leave the besieged Gaza Strip, officials said on Monday, but hundreds of other students remain stranded.
The United States has convinced Israel to allow the seven Fulbright scholars to travel to Jerusalem for visa interviews, an Israeli official said, days after it informed the students their grants had been withdrawn.
"There has been a request resubmitted by the US and they are currently planning to allow them to go to the consulate for the meetings," Major Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the military's Gaza coordination office, told AFP.
In a letter sent to the Gaza scholars, the US consulate in east Jerusalem, which handles Palestinian affairs, said it was working on their cases.
"The US Department of State is working to secure exit permits for you to travel to Jerusalem for your visa interview and for final travel to the United States in order to participate in the Fulbright programme this year," the letter said, according to a copy obtained by AFP.
Lerner said however that Israel has agreed only to allow the students to attend the meetings in Jerusalem, adding that it would consider allowing them to travel to the United States only after the interview process.
A spokeswoman for the US consulate declined to comment.
Since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of Gaza nearly a year ago, Israel has sealed the territory to all but very limited humanitarian aid and severely restricted the movement of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.
"When I heard, I was very disappointed, very distressed. I just kept asking everyone: 'Why?'" said Hadeel Abu Kwaik, who had received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a master's degree in software engineering.
"I don't know anything about politics and I don't care about politics," the 23-year-old Gaza City resident told AFP, adding that the studies she wants to pursue are not offered in the territory.
Abu Kwaik was glad to hear she will be able to continue the visa process but does not know when she will be going to Jerusalem. "I will keep worrying until I get out," she said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had vowed to look into the matter, telling reporters in Iceland on Friday: "We really have to be concerned about the future of Palestinians and the future Palestine.
"And if you cannot engage young people and give them a complete horizon to their expectations and to their dreams, then I don't know that there would be any future for Palestine."
Israel is still preventing hundreds of students from leaving Gaza for educational programmes in other countries, according to the Israel-based Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement.
On Monday, Sari Bashi, the director of the centre, urged European diplomats to follow Rice's example and press Israel to allow admitted Gaza students to attend their programmes.
"A lot of the students who are trapped are on the European parallel to the Fulbright programme," Bashi told AFP. "Why aren't the other foreign embassies working to get their students out? This is European taxpayer money."
On Monday, Israel's Supreme Court heard petitions from two Gaza students asking to be let out to attend programmes in Britain and Germany.
In oral non-binding comments, the judge said the ban was harmful to future coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians and urged the Jewish state to reconsider the policy, according to Gisha, which is representing the students.
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