Belgium offered Gaza students scholarships — then blocked their evacuation

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A group of Palestinian students and researchers is unlikely to take up scholarships at Belgian universities this fall due to disagreements in Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s coalition government over evacuating people from Gaza.

Palestinians are currently unable to travel freely in or out of Gaza, which is under Israeli occupation, although a third country can request evacuation of students and researchers. Countries including Italy and the U.K. have set up systems to help Palestinian students take up study places abroad.

But while scholarship applicants in Gaza received offers in June to begin classes this fall at some of Belgium’s top universities — including the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Hasselt University and the University of Antwerp — Belgian evacuations from Gaza have come to a halt under the coalition government led by Flemish nationalist De Wever.

The students’ case highlights the limits of Belgium’s pro-Palestine stance, one of the strongest in Europe — particularly when it clashes with the Flemish nationalist-led government’s anti-migration policy . Belgium has pledged to recognize Palestinian statehood, imposed sanctions on illegal settlements in the West Bank and urged the EU to do the same.

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt, from De Wever’s N-VA party said: “Evacuations are the competence of the Foreign Office but it is true that there is currently no consensus on this within the government.”

Anne Weyembergh, vice-rector at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, which is set to host two students and three postdoc researchers, argued that if other EU countries could organize student evacuations, then Belgium should, too.

“Some parties in the coalition are extremely reluctant when it comes to migration,” she said in an interview. “We feel this very clearly when it comes to our international students in general and our foreign colleagues who must come and get a visa to take part in conferences and meetings.”

Weyembergh is one of 10 heads of Belgian universities who signed a letter from the scholars to De Wever and Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot in July urging the government to help organize their safe departure.

The exceptional circumstances in which the Palestinian scholars have earned their places in Belgium have not, so far, yielded any offer of help from the government.

The obstacles facing them are partly procedural, mostly political. POLITICO spoke to four of the scholarship recipients, who were told visas could only be obtained in person at a Belgian diplomatic post, such as the one in Jerusalem. Two of them have been able to successfully obtain visas with the help of lawyers in Belgium, suggesting solutions can be found even in Belgium’s rigid immigration system.

But visas on their own are of little help. None of the students and researchers offered funded places in Belgium currently have any way to actually get there.

In a written statement, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said it facilitates and encourages the evacuation of students and researchers from Gaza at the request of a third country.

Anneleen Van Bossuyt speaks during a plenary session at the Belgian Federal Parliament in Brussels on June 5, 2025. | Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images

But a spokesperson for Belgium’s foreign ministry, led by Prévot of the centrist Les Engagés party, said there was currently no decision in the coalition government to organize any more evacuations. The department said it was “actively investigating” what could be done to help the students but that any decision on new evacuations would be the “responsibility of the government as a whole.”

Two Belgian government officials, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that the coalition was divided on just about everything related to Palestine. While Prévot’s foreign ministry says it is looking for solutions, the French-speaking centrist Reformist Movement party (MR), whose leader Georges-Louis Bouchez is known for his pro-Israeli positions , and De Wever’s New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) are said to be against further evacuations.

“It’s common knowledge that if something gets stuck [on this issue], it’s going to be those two parties that are against it,” one of the officials said. MR and De Wever’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Skills to rebuild

Salwa Abu Elhaj, a business administration graduate in Gaza, said the offer of a funded place in KU Leuven’s Master of Communication Sciences program was “one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Abu Elhaj was inspired to pivot to communications by her experience pursuing her undergraduate degree under the stress of war and, eventually, famine. She observed how the NGOs that became a “lifeline” in Gaza struggled to get their message to donors and international partners. Resolved to keep studying, she walked for up to an hour in search of a decent internet connection to submit scholarship applications and attend interviews.

Between Abu Elhaj and her fellow scholars are many of the skills Gaza will need to rebuild — doctors, virologists, computer scientists. Ahmed Alsalibi, who has been offered a postdoc position at ULB , studies how resource-constrained health authorities can use AI to efficiently dispatch ambulances to where they’re needed most. Zuhair Dardona, also handpicked by ULB, plans to research how the conflagration of war, displacement and infrastructure damage affects the spread of infectious disease in his home city.

Bart De Wever and Maxime Prévot are pictured at the Belgian Federal Parliament on April 2, 2026. | Jonas Roosens/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images

Those barring the students’ evacuation “are destroying dreams and preventing people who have ambition, passion, and a genuine desire to contribute to and rebuild their countries from pursuing their futures,” Abu Elhaj said.

In their letter to De Wever and Prévot, the scholars said they fully understood that Belgium must maintain its immigration and security requirements. “We are not asking for these requirements to be waived. We are asking for a practical and lawful way to fulfil them in the exceptional circumstances we are facing,” the letter said.

The European Commission has helped to organize evacuations from Gaza, but only for medical treatment. A Commission spokesperson said they were aware of the students’ case, but that any evacuation would be a matter for “the member states concerned.”

Other European countries continue to welcome students from Gaza. Italy established a “university corridor” for Palestinian students in May 2026, allowing more than 70 students to take their places in Italian universities — although dozens are still waiting for clearance to leave . The U.K. has also established its own scheme for scholarship students from Gaza.

Weyembergh said the universities had put these examples to Belgian officials who had cited “logistical issues” in the way of evacuations. “They say it’s impossible,” she said. “But it doesn’t seem to us that it is.”