As the academic year gets underway and most students are now settling into colleges around the country, almost 100 Gazan students with acceptances to Irish Universities are left uncertain after their Visa applications were denied in recent weeks. Among them are some UCD students who have received full scholarships from the UCD Foundation and the University Sanctuary.
While over 70 Gazan students have successfully travelled to Ireland through university initiatives with the Department of Foreign Affairs since 2024, recent applications have faced a high rate of refusal. According to the ‘Universities of Sanctuary’, at least 31 of those denied entry are scholarship recipients. UCD established a separate stream of sanctuary scholarships to support displaced Palestinians following the 2024 UCDBDS and UCDSU Palestine encampment. Now, many students with these scholarships are unable to avail of them.
Students, including those with full scholarships covering tuition, accommodation, and living expenses, have been rejected on grounds such as insufficient finances, lack of obligation to return to Gaza, and gaps in educational records during the ongoing genocide.
The College Tribune spoke to Ahmed Abuhassan, who was awarded a full scholarship to study computer science at UCD and whose visa was recently rejected on financial grounds. “They asked for it to be an original document. And we can’t provide such a thing from Gaza”. He described requests for original bank statements and documentation from his old university as “frustrating”; he had been studying computer science at the Islamic University of Gaza, and this institution was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. “How could I provide the original documents for a place where there is no infrastructure, still after genocide for almost three years? The universities are not functioning or working anymore.”
“It’s already been living in hell in Gaza,” he continued. “But we had hope that we would get out, complete our education and start living like any human being out there. And that hope vanished when we read the visa refusal. There is nowhere for us to hope for a future or a better life here in Gaza.”
Some activists have argued that the standard expected of Gaza applicants has changed from last year. Sean Radcliffe, chair of the Trinity Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) group, told The Tribune that the visa applications met “the standards of last year” but that the Irish government have “now turned around and scrapped it without telling anyone.” Abuhassan told the Tribune, “The files we provided were almost identical to what was accepted last year. And all of us were surprised when the refusal came.”
The Department of Justice maintains that there has been no change to visa processing procedures or approval criteria, stating that each application is decided on its own merits.
Renn, an activist from the For Gaza project, a campaign helping asylum students apply for Irish university places and visas, argued that UCD was not doing enough to support the students. One sentiment was that students’ experiences varied greatly depending on the individual staff member or UCD department they were in contact with.
Radcliffe recounted instances of UCD students who have faced difficulty obtaining official documentation, including proof of scholarship from staff, who were slow to respond to requests, stating that “the students are left completely in the dark.”
Abuhassan, who told the Tribune that some staff within UCD have been “making enormous efforts to help students,” recounted how quickly staff would respond, and that “the head of [my] school signed a letter for me from his own home on a Friday night.”
“They deal with us with humanity. When we ask for something or email them, they respond almost immediately with clear answers. They don’t ignore us or leave us in silence for weeks without an answer. They answer almost immediately.”
Experience varies by students’ programme office, with Radcliffe giving praise to the college architecture and engineering office. He explained that UCD seems to have a somewhat fractured system that relies on individuals’ kindness rather than structural support.
UCD has not publicly addressed the Visa refusals, unlike Trinity, which sent a university-wide email in August urging students to support Gazans.
When asked why he chose to study at UCD, Abuhassan emphasised how he never planned to leave Gaza. “No one would love to leave the people he loves. No one would choose to leave his country. But the war forced us to choose to care about our future and start looking for options like studying abroad. Every Irish person I came across was supportive, kind and warm. So it was easy to choose Ireland”
“To understand what UCD means to me, you have to know where I was writing from. Because I sent my first email to that university from a tent on a borrowed laptop with a cracked screen, a chart from a solar panel after an airstrike had brought my home down over our heads, we were being pulled out of it. In the clothes we were wearing. My own university had been bombed into a shelter for displaced families.”
When asked what part of the visa denial has been the most misunderstood, Abuhassan answered, “Some of us were 17, some of them were 16. The war took up an enormous part of their life. They dealt with this enormous stress and endured all the suffering, and during all of this, they chose to believe in Ireland and to start competing for scholarships at their universities.”
While Abuhassan has appealed the rejection of his visa, UCD registration closes this Friday, leaving him uncertain about what his future holds.
Two protests have taken place over the last few weeks outside the Department of Justice, calling for the visas to be processed. Representatives from the UCD Students’ Union and a number of staff were present at both.
“The whole campus wants them here, their lecturers want them here, the students’ union wants them here, Ireland wants them here,” said UCDSU president Enzo Crothers. “So if the whole campus is saying yes, why are the students still in Palestine, why are they still in Gaza?”
Sharae Deckard, UCD Associate Professor for English, Drama and Film, noted, “I am worried that there has been a distinct shift from last year. It’s very obvious that last year Simon Harris and others made a big deal over Ireland being a sort of sanctuary and taking pride in the fact that we had evacuated students, and this year there’s been a switch in that position. Students that actually have full funding, that have everything covered still can’t come, so it’s incredibly frustrating to see these students in this situation, especially when we already know the extent of the scholasticide.”
Sophie Gliott & Aisling Murphy – Co-Editors