The plight of the Palestinian scientist

Four Palestinian researchers describe how conflict in Gaza and the West Bank has hindered their careers in science and medicine

- Katrina Miller

Pursuing a scientific career in the Palestinian territories has been fraught for decades. Then Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, igniting a war in the Gaza Strip that has lasted for more than a year.

As Israel has bombed and invaded Gaza in a campaign to eliminate Hamas, schools have been destroyed and students have had to continue their studies remotely or stop them altogether. Physicians have worked in ever-worsening conditions. And Palestinians outside the territory, too, have felt the effects.

The New York Times spoke to four Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad about the conflict that looms over their scientific research and medical work.

Osaid Alser, 32

In 1948, Dr Osaid Alser’s family moved to Gaza from Hamama, a village on land that is now part of Israel. A general surgery resident and researcher in Texas, Alser completed medical school in Gaza in 2016, studied at Oxford University for a time, and then moved to Harvard University in 2019 to conduct research on emergency trauma surgery.

Studying in Europe and the United States is different from in Gaza, he said. Unlimited access to electricity, water and internet is a given, and travel is, for the most part, unrestricted. “That was shocking to me,” he said.

In Gaza, Alser’s parents chose where to live based on where they would have the most stable internet access, so that he and his brothers could pursue their studies. For electricity, they had a generator. If its gas ran out, they relied on solar panels, candles and batteries.

It took him three tries to gain admission to Oxford. He applied for nearly 20 scholarships and won one. With Harvard, he just kept applying. That persistence, Alser said, is something he learned from living in Gaza.