Ali Zedeya, 28, should have been sitting in lectures and writing papers for his first year in Law studies in a Paris university, but the closure of the crossings kept him trapped in Gaza.

When Zedeya heard last week that Egypt would reopen its sealed border crossing with the Gaza Strip to let people travel as a goodwill gesture during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, he packed his luggage and made his way to the crossing filled with hope to cross the borders and fly to France.

"We were told by Hamas police to gather in southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, where the applications were processed," said Zedeya.

He is one of nearly 700 students who are enrolled to study abroad and have been held up in Gaza for more than one year. "I waited like hundreds of people to cross into Egypt, but my name was never called.... I waited and I waited until the crossing is sealed off again."

Israel closed Gaza's borders since Hamas, listed as a terror group for it calls for the destruction of Israel, took over Gaza last year after bloody fight with rival Fatah movement.

Zedeya left no stone unturned to leave the Gaza Strip to start studying law in France, but all his attempts were destined to failure.

He was accepted in the University of Toulouse, College of Law, but has been unable to reach France due to the closure of all Gaza crossings with both Israel and Egypt.

Khalil Shaheen, a senior researcher for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), said there is no freedom of movement in or out of the strip.

"A permit from the Israeli foreign ministry is required and many students have been unable to get them in time for the start of the university year," he said, adding "some students stand to lose their places for the entire year, as well as their scholarships, if they do not arrive to their campuses immediately."

Shaheen said higher educational opportunities in the Gaza Stripare extremely limited, and undergraduate and master's degrees are unavailable in key subjects.

Neveen Abu Tuaima, 26, is one of the Palestinian female students in Gaza, who have places on university courses abroad and are unable to go or return to their studies.

She won a scholarship for a master degree on civil engineering at St. Lawrence University in the United States. When she came home to Gaza for the summer, she too found herself trapped.

"Israel seems determined to punish all Gazans, including students, for the behavior of Hamas," said Neveen. "Israel should not make us pay the price for its conflict with a political or military group."

Neveen, who tried to travel to Egypt through Rafah crossing last month and then to the United States, hoped that she could continue her studies in Gaza, but the Gaza Universities only offer limited number of higher education programs.

Mohamed Bakheet, who waited, together with hundreds of students for two days at the Rafah crossing and could not pass into Egypt at the end, said "Israel forbids Gaza residents from studying in Israel or the West Bank, and rarely permits foreign professors and lecturers to visit Gaza to teach."

According to data from the PCHR, almost 700 Palestinian students are still waiting to leave Gaza in order to pursue studies and scholarships abroad.

"I believe this number has increased after the schools announced their exam results as Gaza students want to move into universities," Shaheen said.

He added that all of these students are stranded inside the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli siege and closure, and they are being denied their rights to pursue their education and their futures.

Mohamed Wadi, President of al-Azhar University in Gaza said the Israeli closure is destroying everything including the education system, affirming that those young people who seek to travel abroad have basic goals, which are serving peace in the region and rebuild their "already injured homeland."

"It is unjust to deny those young people from a higher education. It is remarkably shortsighted of the Israeli government to be resorting to such pettiness," he said.

He added "those young students are exactly the sort of people that can pave the way for peace in the Middle East. The Israeli government needs to revise its policies and realize that education is an essential -- if not the most important -- component in a future peace process."

"The right to education is a basic human right. It is something everyone should have access to. No one should be denied their education, and something should be done to solve our problem," said Abu Tuaima who lost all hopes to go back to class.

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