University professor Ahmed Abu Shaban often gets up at 3:00 am in Toronto to remotely teach his students in Gaza — motivated by loyalty to his trapped pupils, and a deep sense of guilt.
Shaban, an academic who fled Gaza days after October 7, 2023, said he has an obligation to students in the Palestinian Territory desperate to study in defiance of unimaginable challenges.
He also said he has a responsibility to help preserve higher education in Gaza, while the world is focused on the humanitarian emergency.
But the 50-year-old conceded that guilt also weighs on him.
“Guilty for leaving Gaza,” he told AFP. “Like we just abandoned our country, our people, our institution.”
Shaban is still the dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Al-Azhar University, which was destroyed — along with most university buildings — by Israeli air strikes.
Shaban crossed to Egypt shortly after …