
Professor Ahmed Abu Shaban. Photo courtesy of Joshua Best
Ahmed Abu Shaban is Associate Professor of Agriculture and Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Al-Azhar University-Gaza. Currently, he is a visiting professor at York University, Toronto. We spoke about his early life and education in Palestine as a native of Gaza studying under Israeli occupation, his research on sustainable food systems in Gaza and the decades-long Israeli assaults that have rendered the Palestinian population vulnerable to engineered scarcity, as well as repeated attacks on university infrastructure leading up to the current genocide. Professor Abu Shaban also offered insights into Palestinian attempts to develop resilience in the face of ongoing settler colonialism.
The interview was conducted by Alireza Doostdar and a research assistant. It is divided into three parts:
Part 1: Early life, education at Al-Azhar University-Gaza, and experiencing the first and second Intifadas as a student and instructor
Part 2: Research on agriculture, food systems, and Palestinian resilience in the face of systematic Israeli assaults on the totality of the “food value chain”
Part 3: Assaults on higher education before and after 2023, and the struggle for education under genocide
Further reading: How Israel destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself (Aljazeera, July 2 2024)
What follows is a full transcription, lightly edited for clarity.
Part 1: Early life, education at Al-Azhar University-Gaza, and experiencing the first and second Intifadas as a student and instructor
Alireza Doostdar (AD): Hello, thank you for joining us today. This is a conversation with Professor Ahmed Abu Shaaban, who is an Associate Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Al-Azhar University, Gaza. He is currently a Visiting Professor in Labs and Environmental and Urban Change at York University. We’re conducting this conversation on May 21st, 2025. Professor Abu Shaaban, thank you so much for joining us. I know this is a challenging and difficult time. If we could begin by asking you to speak a little bit about your early life and education. Is your family from Gaza? Were they refugees? And what was it like to grow up in Gaza, if that’s where you actually grew up?
Ahmed Abu Shabaan (AAS): Thank you very much for having me and thank you for organizing the significant efforts to reflect the narrative of Palestinian education. I was, actually, born in Saudi Arabia. My father and my mother, both of them, like many young people at that time, were working in Gulf states. They were working as teachers in Saudi Arabia. I was born there, but my father decided early in 1980, when I was only five years old, to come back to Palestine, to Gaza. We are originally from Gaza, so we are not refugees. And as you know, that maybe around 65% of the population in Gaza are refugees, but you have around like 35% originally from Gaza. So we were not displaced in 1948. But of course, in Gaza, we have nine refugee camps where the majority of the population lives within those camps, but also it became even like people were just getting out of the camps, but the majority are refugees. My early education was in Gaza, and we have two types of primary education. One is the primary education offered by the government, and the other one which is provided by the United Nations, schools.
For non-refugees, we are only admitted in governmental schools. And when we talk about governmental schools, this is reflecting even what kind of geopolitical context there. Before 1967; the education system and the whole Gaza Strip was administered by Egyptians, and West Bank was administered by the Jordanians. So our education system was following the curricula of the Egyptians in Gaza and Jordanians in the West Bank. And even after the occupation in 1967, and we have Israeli occupation authorities, they did not allow for a Palestinian curricula for our education, so they kept the Egyptian curricula. So as a child, I was actually taught about the Pharaohs in Egypt. I was not allowed to study the Palestinian history or the history of our nation, not even the ancient history, or our modern history. Of course, that was maybe the formal education, but of course, informal education where we grow up in Gaza, we grow up under occupation and the Israeli occupation and their aggression against the community and population and living with the refugees, that we were always actually just learning about our modern history. And of course, at that time, it was very difficult for Palestinians to get out of Gaza for education, because before 1967, Palestinians were joining universities in Egypt and West Bank. They would go either to Jordan or through Jordan to all over the world to receive their higher education. However, that was not easy. I mean, because of the deteriorated economic situation and the people’s capacity to spend money on education, that was very difficult. And after the occupation in 1967 also, there were additional restrictions by the Israelis for the young people to get out of Gaza to get their education. And therefore, there were several initiatives and those initiatives were led by local community and civil society to establish universities in the West Bank and in Gaza Strip after 1967. And that actually has started in West Bank with several universities there like Birzeit University, Al-Najah University, and then started a bit later in Gaza in 1979 when the first university was established, the Islamic University in Gaza, and followed by Al-Azhar University, which was a little bit later, that was 1992. And I mean, Al-Azhar University even has a kind of a very interesting story because, you know, for Israel, independent Palestinian education is a threat because education for us means awareness, means Palestinian independent identity, because it’s a conflict of knowledge. And for them, they were challenging any attempts to establish or to sustain a Palestinian independent education. And I mean, and maybe you are aware, Al-Azhar University is a very popular university in Egypt and it is well known internationally even. Mainly in the Islamic countries, it’s known well-known, Al-Azhar University. And now maybe the question is why Al-Azhar University in Gaza is named after Al-Azhar University in Egypt. That was simply because at the time we were trying to establish a Palestinian university in Gaza that is occupied by the Israelis and we requested, or rather we needed permission by the occupation authority. Of course, they said, “No, this is not allowed.” And then we just approached Al-Azhar University in Cairo in Egypt and told them, “OK, listen, we are going to say that this is a branch of Al-Azhar University in Egypt only to get the permission from the Israelis to start this institution.” And then we got the permission and we called it Al-Azhar University Gaza. From the first minute, it was an independent university, but it was actually named as if it was a branch of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. And after 1994, when the Palestinian Authority was established based on the Oslo agreement, we had a Palestinian Ministry of Education, we did not change the name. We kept the name as it is. We kept the name Al-Azhar University Gaza while it was not meant to be an Islamic university or it was not meant to be a branch of Al-Azhar University there. But this is just to reflect how the education system was controlled, but also where it was challenged by the Israeli occupation, because for them, this is very difficult. I mean, they would consider this as a threat to have a Palestinian education system that is independent, reflecting the Palestinian identity. And of course, talking about the Palestinian or reflecting the Palestinian narrative. And yeah, I mean, I completed all my primary education journey in Gaza. And in 1992, I obtained my Tawjihi, which is the high school certificate. And at that time, Al-Azhar University started, it was a new university. And at that time, as a young person, I was interested to leave, to go somewhere to get my higher education. But my father said, “No, you need to stay here and to join Al-Azhar University.”
At that time, the name of the Faculty of Agriculture was the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. So I started there in 1992, and I obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1996. And during this period, the first year there was still the Israeli occupation with all its oppression and aggression that is practiced against universities. But after 1994, the Palestinian Authority was established, based on the Oslo Agreement. And I graduated in 1996. I obtained a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Sciences, majoring in Plant Protection. So I joined the same faculty in 1997 as an instructor and research assistant, worked there for two years from 1997 to 1999, when I got a scholarship, a DAAD scholarship, which is the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, which is the German Academic Exchange Services, to get my master’s degree in Germany, in the University of Göttingen. So I obtained my master’s degree in 2001. And then I was offered the PhD scholarship in the same university, Universität Göttingen or George August University in Germany. But at that time, I was communicating with my employer, Al-Azhar University in Gaza, asking them if I can sustain my higher education graduate studies to obtain a PhD. And they said, no, according to the regulations, I need to come back to Gaza to serve at least for two years, and then I can leave for a PhD. And then I decided to come back, and that was also the wish of my family, to get married. And so I went back to Palestine in 2001, and I stayed there three years. I got married and was working as a lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Al-Azhar University. And that was one of the decisions that was not easy, because if you remember also, 2001 was the Second Intifada. And I mean, the level of aggression was not as we observe today, or even we observed during the last 20 years. But it was not easy. And for me, that was kind of a difficult decision. But that was the story for the whole thing. I mean, every time I decide, we need to go back to serve. And yeah, I mean, I left in 2001. And I just stayed there in Gaza for like three years. In 2004, I obtained another scholarship, also the DAAD scholarship to obtain my PhD in Natural Resources Management, also in Germany, in Stuttgart, University of Hohenheim. I started in 2004, and I obtained my degree in 2007. And I was offered [a position of] Scientific Assistant in the university there. And then in 2008, I decided, “No, I want to get back to Palestine,” so I just left my post there. That was the wish of my family as well. When I came back to Palestine in 2008, I joined the academic staff in the Faculty of Agriculture. And since then, I’ve been teaching there, except for like two years. I was offered a Fulbright scholarship, to come as a visiting professor to the USA, to University of Wisconsin-Madison. That was in 2013. So I came for two years. The first year was a Fulbright scholarship, then I was offered a contract to work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Department of Environmental Sociology. But like even then when I got that contract, I decided to come back in 2015 to Gaza. And yeah, since then, I had been working in the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, which I was also in several leading positions there. So I was Head of Department. And most recently, I was also the Dean of the Faculty.
AD: Thank you. That was very helpful. If I could back up just a little bit, you mentioned that when you began to teach as an instructor, after you had received your bachelor’s degree, that the Second Intifada broke out. And of course, when you were in high school, it must have been during the First Intifada, right?
AAS: Yeah.
AD: So how was that? I mean, how was it to be a student or to be an instructor and to be living through the Intifada? I imagine that must be really extraordinary.
AAS: It is extraordinary. I mean, usually, actually, most of the time, schools are not working because you have all the demonstrations and this even aggressive action that is practiced by the Israeli military against young people in the schools. I still remember when I was in the first year of high school, which is the 10th grade, where there was, as usual, students would get off a little bit early from the school and they were stoning the Israeli soldiers, I mean, it was the very usual context of that Intifada. So young children are confronting the Israeli tanks with the stones, which is only a way of demonstration and not effective. But of course, that was the aggressive retaliation by the Israelis. They shot one of the children and he was injured. And then the other children, instead of just taking him to the hospital, they brought him back to the school because they were not able to take him to the hospital. And they were coming to the school while and all the students saw their colleague full of blood there and they started to demonstrate. And then the Israeli tanks were surrounding the whole school. We were inside the school and they were surrounding [it] and starting to even want to actually invade [it], to attack the students inside the school. I still remember that day when I was in my classroom. And for me, you know, I’m not familiar with all, I mean, me myself, I was not part of those demonstrations. My personality was totally different. I was focusing only on my study. And I remember I was like really shocked and I was crying inside my classroom. I didn’t know what to do. And, you know, like every ten minutes I see another student injured, bleeding and they are still using the tear gas against us. I mean, at that time, I remember I didn’t know what to do. And then that was actually and we were kept inside the school till the night. And finally, they actually allowed the students to get out of the school. I was going home crying, I didn’t know what to do. And then finally I found my father was waiting outside to take me home. And I still remember that day when my father said, “OK, no school after that. So you are going to stay home. I’m going just to bring private teachers to give you the lessons at home. And you go only to make the final exams at the end of the year.” And that was the situation for the First Intifada. It was very difficult for even children to go to school. It was very risky. And I still remember, in all phases of my primary education, friends who were killed or injured or even arrested as children. They used to arrest children, torture children, at that time. And, of course, for the family, it was better just to keep the children at home and not to send them to the schools. It was really a difficult situation, a difficult time for us. But also that reflects again and again is the resilience model of the Palestinian people and how the Palestinian actually insists to sustain education in whatever context. Yeah, I still remember at the time when the first intifada with the Israeli authority decided to close the universities. I mean, the Islamic University was working and they decided to close the universities. I had my elder brothers and sisters, they were students at the Islamic University before the Al-Azhar University was there. And I still remember that they [my siblings] were actually going to the houses of the professors and to the mosques to take their lectures because the university was closed. But they still, the people as well as the university itself, still wanted to keep providing the education, and the students [wanted that] as well. So I still remember my sister obtaining her bachelor’s degree, which was actually partially obtained while the university was officially closed. But they were going to the mosque, going to the house of the professor to take the lectures. And at that time, at that early time, even there was no online teaching. But even with that situation, we still, you know, have this resilience model.
AD: Yeah, that is truly amazing. How were things different during the Second Intifada? And you were, of course, in a different position by that point.
AAS: By the Second Intifada, we [had] the Authority there. We have the Ministry of Education there. Israeli occupation forces were not inside Gaza. They were inside Gaza surrounding those Israeli settlements inside Gaza. But they were not coming inside the cities, for example. So for education at that time, education facilities [had] better context compared to the First Intifada, because [during] the First Intifada, confrontation with the Israelis, I mean, students’ [confrontations] with the Israeli occupation territories was actually a common, regular practice. And we just faced aggressions on an everyday basis. Now, at the time of the Second Intifada, the education system was actually in much better context. There were like several occasions where confrontation happened or the Israelis actually targeted facilities inside Gaza, including education facilities. But that was not on a regular basis, because the universities located inside the cities and where actually the occupation is not coming. So they were not targeted. Now, talking about what’s going on right now in Gaza, or in Palestine, in general – of course, you cannot talk about any positive thing there. But maybe the only positive thing is it is an eye-opening of a long-term settler colonialism project targeting all means of life. So, I mean, the targeting of the education system, the targeting of education system, the targeting of food system, the targeting of environment, the targeting of public services, the targeting of all means of life for Palestinians; with the main intention to get the people out of their land. The second intifada was part of the story, because for them, the Palestinian Authority as a legitimate authority that is acknowledged internationally, for them, is a big threat. And for them, it was actually targeting the Authority itself and targeting their presence and the potential for a Palestinian independent state that is internationally acknowledged was actually demeaning. I’m not saying that the situation of the Palestinian Authority is perfect, but I say that this is actually a legitimate body that is internationally acknowledged and is the seed of our independent Palestinian state. And that was actually affecting all means of life, including education, because they were managing all means of life. And all the challenges that were faced by the Authority, at that time, was reflected in their capacity to support the education system, the primary education, as well as, the higher education.
And, I mean, the phase afterward when the election in 2006 and afterward when we had this ugly political division, Gaza Strip and West Bank, and we have the de facto government in Gaza and the government in the West Bank and the implication of the siege afterward in the education system was really dramatic. The situation when you just talk about siege and its implication, like it’s almost like 20 years of siege in Gaza and its implication of increasing level of poverty, increasing level of unemployment, food insecurity. But also this has an implication on our education system, because [the] main higher education system in Gaza are non-profit organizations that [were] actually making their operation costs from the fees. And when you have a high level of poverty and employment, students are not capable of paying their fees. This is actually reflected into our capacity to operate. But this is not the only thing that also to build the capacity of our institutions, like if we would like to build a laboratory, if we would like to import equipment, even if we have the donor to do this, we cannot do this unless we get the coordination and permission by the Israelis, because we are not allowed to bring anything into our laboratories. Or even if we would like to buy some material for our training, like physics lab or chemistry lab, we are not allowed to bring those things. In addition to that, [you have] the mobility issue, you know, being a professor at an academic institution in Gaza is different, because, I mean, being a professor here [in his current institution], you can just mobilize, you can just interact, cooperate with the international academic community. While being in Gaza, you cannot communicate with your colleagues in the West Bank. You are not allowed to visit the universities in the West Bank. Forget about the international academic institutions. So, in addition to [all that], the aggression of the Israelis [did] not actually start after the 7th of October. A very good example of [that], [like I mentioned], I started my journey with my faculty 32 years ago, like I spent almost all my life there, in the same faculty, and [that] faculty was destroyed three times before. So, this is not the first war against Gaza, it may be the biggest, the most massive, but we had the war in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021. So, during those wars, the faculty was destroyed several times. Al-Azhar University [had] two campuses, as maybe Dr. Abusada explained, but we [had] the third campus, [and the third was] the Faculty of Agriculture, [which was] in Beit Hanoun, where actually we have our research station, or we have our farm there, the farm of the Faculty of Agriculture. The farm and the faculty were destroyed several times before. And this time, in this war, this is the fourth time, actually, we even got the new campus, where we [received] donations from several states or several countries to rebuild our faculty. So, that was the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine that was built based on a request that was submitted to the Kingdom of Morocco – that faculty, our faculty, was destroyed.
AD: I’d like to hear more about these past instances in which the university has undergone aggression, where the Israelis have destroyed infrastructure or targeted faculty, and so on. But before we get there, you mentioned the limits on mobility, and I wonder if you could say a little bit about how that has changed over time. So, was there a period, for instance, where you were able to travel to other parts of Palestine, or to Egypt or Jordan or other countries, or even the 1948 territories? When did the restriction become, I imagine the siege was the point where it became the tightest, but has there been like a steady limiting of mobility over time?
AAS: You know, the period I lived in Gaza where mobility was not that difficult, was not long. As I said, when the Palestinian Authority was established based on the Oslo Agreement in 1994, before that, it was occupation. And even then, you need[ed] a permit to leave. I remember when I was young, there was something called a ‘reduced measure’. I don’t know why they call it ‘reduced measure’, but this is the exact translation. It is called the reduced permission or التصريح المخفض which means that if you are younger than 22 years old and you want to leave, you get a permit and you need to sign that you are not coming back before one year. I don’t know why, what the meaning of that is, but that was actually the system. So, the people have no choice – if they would like to leave, they have to sign this, and they have to wait for several months to get the permission to leave. That has ended by 1994 when the Palestinian Authority was established. There was some kind of flexibility that we can leave through Egypt, restriction to leave through Erez and through the Israeli airports were still there, it was not easy, but at that time also, the Palestinian Authority established Palestinian International Airport and that was a great initiative that people could actually leave through this airport. But shortly after that [the airport] was destroyed by the Israelis, by the way. So, it became history.
AD: This was in Gaza?
AAS: That was in Gaza. Yes, that was in Gaza and that was destroyed by the Israelis after the siege. And then I left, as I told you, I left in 1999 to obtain my master’s degree in Germany. And during this time and before the First Intifada, that was, actually somehow; it was easier mobility. It has never been as easy as it should be, but it was easier. But then since the Second Intifada, things became more complicated and the full siege started in 2007 after the Israelis decided to put the whole Gaza under siege and control.
Part 2: Research on agriculture, food systems, and Palestinian resilience in the face of systematic Israeli assaults on the totality of the “food value chain”
AD: I’m interested in hearing a little bit about your choice to study agriculture. You were an agriculture major at Al-Azhar University, Gaza, and then you went on to do both your master’s and your PhD in related fields, and you have now worked for quite a while as a professor. What made you decide to do agriculture as a field?
AAS: That’s somehow related to my father’s wish. We have a farm back home, and for my father, [the] farm is something very important. For Palestinians, in general, farming is something [that reflects] the connection between the people and the land. A couple of days ago I was in an interview talking about the resilience of the food system in Gaza, and I was just reflecting on this story of my father, who died in 2021– we have our land that is in an area along the borders with the Israelis, part of this land is located in access-restricted area. We own the land, but we are not allowed to do whatever we wish there. Some part of this land we are not allowed to access, some part we are allowed to cultivate with some crops, and it is subject to regular aggression by the Israelis. The Israelis would come to this land and cut the trees, because they say, “We need clear vision, so for security reasons.” I remember that our land was olive tree land, and it was targeted by the Israelis several times. And you know, for olive trees, you need to wait three to five years to get production. So every time the Israelis come and cut the trees, my father would go and recultivate the trees again. And I remember that I was once talking to my father and I told him, “Listen, this is really too much. I mean, we are investing a lot of money here. And we don’t see any revenues. So every time before production, the trees are cut. So why actually [keep going]?” He said, “Listen, let them cut it 100 times, and we will recultivate it 101 times.” And for us, you know, land is not only a means to produce food, but it is our identity. And yeah, I believe also, because we belong to this land, for us, it has a symbolic meaning, rather than even an asset. I usually say, people who belong to this land would never commit the crime of cutting a tree. And we are just practicing cultivating the trees on the land. So that was actually mainly because of the wish of my father. But also I like the field. Maybe I just did some shifts in my graduate studies. So my bachelor was rather technical, Land Protection discipline. But in my graduate studies, I decided to go more into social [disciplines] like Agricultural Economics and Socioeconomics to reflect this connection between the people and the land and their practices.
AD: I note that your dissertation, your PhD dissertation was titled ‘Socioeconomic Assessment of Using Treated Wastewater in Irrigation Agriculture.’ And I know you’ve worked on that quite a bit. I saw articles that you’ve also written on this subject. This brings me to reflecting a little bit on how, I mean, you’ve already talked about this with regard to your father, but the extent to which this is a very practical discipline insofar as life anywhere depends on agriculture. But in particular, in the Gaza Strip, where so much depends on the ability to develop a sustainable form of life within a very narrow territory because of all the restrictions. What role does your field play? And have you played, as a faculty person, perhaps in conjunction with your colleagues and students in ensuring that life is sustainable in Gaza?
AAS: Again, you know, as a settler colonialism project, they are trying to target all means of life with a very clear agenda to get the people out of their land. And they are challenging, actually, our food system and food sovereignty through different measures. And that actually started a very long time ago in the West Bank and Gaza. And this is actually reflecting a challenging context. Like we may have, in many other areas in the region and in all developing countries, challenges to our food system, like climate change, for example, creating scarcity of water resources. So this is something that we are facing, as many other nations are facing. But when this is associated with the geopolitical context and the Israeli settler colonialism agenda and practices to make life even more difficult for the Palestinians, that actually creates additional layers of suffering for the farming communities and for our food system and food security. With the attempt, always, always the attempt is to keep the food system fragile, dependent on the Israelis to control. And that was obvious, actually, during this war. Because the Israeli officials even said that at the beginning of the war, there was no food for Palestinians. And maybe the good thing about being a researcher, because you always think critically, you just start to ask questions. And maybe one of the questions I wish that all the people would start asking is: how come actually the Israelis are deciding for the food for Palestinians? And how come actually they were able to shut down the food system within a very short time after the 7th of October? And this actually was not starting on the 7th of October. It’s a very long strategy, even long before. Because when you think about food inside Gaza, it’s either locally produced or imported food. Local food is actually challenged by restrictions to access land, restrictions to access water that are imposed by the Israelis, but also restrictions to access agricultural inputs that are imported through the borders and the crossings that are controlled by the Israelis. Not only the land, but also the fishing area, the sea. 85% of our fishing area was actually restricted by the Israelis before the 7th of October. And this is affecting our capacity to produce food.
Not only this, but also any attempt that actually even most of the time are financed by international community or the United Nations to adapt to climate change, to reduce the adverse impact of climate change on the population in Gaza; either is not permitted by the Israelis, or if it is permitted and implemented, in the first event of aggression coming after the implementation of any of those projects, whatever facilities or infrastructure are established are destroyed in a systematic way. And this is something that reflects even the need of, first of all, studies and research to reflect those challenges, those policies, and how they function; and how as Palestinians we need to work on enhancing the resilience of our food system, because it is very clear, they were very capable to achieve what they wanted in a very simple way. Now the people in Gaza are starving simply because they are not capable of producing food internally, but also they [the Israelis] are preventing any food from coming from outside because they are controlling the borders. Last month we were in a meeting discussing food security in Palestine and thinking about Gaza Strip and West Bank, and my recommendation was that we actually need to learn the lesson in the West Bank, because I hope we will never see such a thing in the West Bank. But it’s very clear, it’s the same settler colonialism agenda, they would like to get the people outside Gaza, they would also like to see the people of West Bank outside of it. And therefore, we need to think about the resilience of our food system, even in the West Bank, because we should not allow this to happen again. We need to think about decentralization of our food system. [We need to ensure] That people, even at the household level, have the facility and the capacity to produce some food, whatever the situation is.
I think it’s very important and essential to keep doing more research on the food system in Palestine, mainly because of two reasons. The first is that we need, first of all, to document the atrocities and the crimes that were committed against the people there, because I believe documentation through research is very important. And maybe not today, but one day for sure, those who committed those crimes should be accountable for what they did. But also very importantly, we need to think about optimal vision, how to rehabilitate our food system and how to rebuild a resilient food system in Palestine. I wish that all this will end, hopefully soon, and we start to think about rebuilding all systems, including the food system. But what I really am afraid of, that the donor agenda may actually give the vision of how this should be rebuilt. Ethically as a Palestinian researcher, and I think it’s the ethics of the research, is to tell the Palestinian narrative, to reflect the Palestinian vision, how the Palestinian would actually like their Gaza rebuilt, including the food system. But this also applies for all other sectors as well.
AD: You mentioned that the resilience of the food system is, of course, extremely important, but that it’s also been continually under attack and for a long time. And I just wanted to make sure we know what the elements of that are. So I’m aware that there have been repeated attacks on water infrastructure, for instance, water treatment facilities, waste treatment facilities, power facilities, right? Are there other aspects of the food system [that have been targeted as well]?
AAS: The whole value chain of the food system that is targeted in a very systematic way. Last year, I conducted research on capacity, specifically on how the capacities of the food system and local food production were targeted. And it is really a systematic approach. [There has been a] lockdown on importation of any inputs, since 7th of October – no seeds have been allowed to come inside Gaza, no fertilizers, and no fodder. Our livestock in Gaza are either being targeted by bombardment of animal shelters, killing the shelters, or banning fodder. So the animals are starving, we lost the livestock, we don’t have livestock in Gaza. But also destruction of whatever exists inside. They were targeting agricultural input supply stores in Gaza, nurseries, water wells, farm infrastructures like greenhouses, open fields, orchards, food processing, fodder factories, and hatcheries. Even NGOs like agricultural cooperatives, seed banks (the only seed bank in Gaza was destroyed), bakeries, food industry, food processing units. If you follow the value chain that was shown in the research, everything was destroyed in a kind of a systematic way. You know, it’s something like the food system should collapse. We should not allow for anything to happen.
I have a sad story about my student. I don’t know, maybe you heard about him. He’s very popular, his name is Yousef Abu Rabee. He was in his fourth year in the Faculty of Agriculture. He comes from a farming family in Beit Lahiya, north in Gaza. And north Gaza was one of those places that were evacuated or received evacuation orders by the Israelis. But the people decided they are not leaving. So [the Israeli occupation decided], “OK, you are not leaving. There is no food.” They destroyed the farms, destroyed water wells, destroyed everything. It is a farming area. But also they did not allow the food to come in. Even humanitarian food [aid] is not allowed to come in. The people are starving there. Yousef did a great initiative in Gaza, in the north in Beit Lahiya. It’s called حنزرعها (Hanizraaha), which means ‘We Will Cultivate It’. Yousef started with almost very limited resources, a nursery. And he picked some seeds from the destroyed inputs supply stores and started to cultivate seedlings and to distribute seedlings for his neighbors and rehabilitated his farm. And they started to produce vegetables and distribute vegetables to the starving people to support their resilience. For Israelis, Yousef Abu Rabee was a threat more than all fighters. I believe that this resilience model is more effective than any other model. They don’t want to see that. And therefore, he was targeted by a drone while he was on his farm last October, he was killed there. Simply, he was doing nothing. He was just farming his land to produce food to support the starving people in Gaza. So it is when you talk about the system, all elements of the system, including land, assets, water, input supply, processing, food processing, bakeries. I mean, the whole system, and if you think of each and every value chip of the value of the food system, that was [all] targeted in a very systematic way.
RA: I was wondering, before October, were you part of a collective to help think of ways of making things more sustainable for people in Gaza, whether that collective was inside Gaza itself, or in Palestine, or if such a collective existed internationally? And is there such a thing now? From my understanding, you give lectures about the food situation in Gaza and food sustainability. Is there a collective that helps support you thinking through this?
AAS: Before the war, we were always like trying to conduct more research, not only to reflect the implications of the Israeli policies on our food system, but also to review our national policies and local policies, how we need to be more aware of the risk that may come, which have already become reality after the 7th of October, but also how to design our policies to achieve a resilient food system. We were calling for decentralization of food system, and building the capacity of urban agriculture and to facilitate even food production at household level and trying to support those initiatives and reduce the dependency on imported inputs, like thinking about a seed bank that was established before the 7th of October to work on indigenous hybrids that can be sustained. Frankly, that was really a challenge because, first of all, the limited capacities, limited resources to do this, but also because of how powerful those policies are influencing our food system. Now, what happened after the ongoing genocide in Gaza, people became aware of the risk that were actually imposed even before and they started to actually show coping mechanism because they have no choice right now. And now we start to see a resilience model that, as I described, is like Yousef Abu Rabee’s. You see how innovative he was thinking of how to find a solution for, for example, water resources. I mean, we have no energy. There is no conventional energy, they [people] don’t have the fuel to operate pumps. They were using frying oil to operate pumps. Yeah, they [the people] started to think about innovative things.
Even when you think about the women now, I just conducted some interviews with women and it’s really impressive how they are finding ways to use almost very limited resources to produce food for their families. They are inventing new recipes. We have our traditional Palestinian recipes from the Palestinian kitchen. And now we are using the same names of those recipes, but we call it [the recipe] ‘a fake one’. Meaning we don’t have meat, so we use different ingredients to produce the same recipe. You know what I mean?
Those initiatives, those coping mechanisms, and the resilience model that is presented by Palestinian women and Palestinian youth is really something I would consider as a model that needs to be studied. We need to document and we need to disseminate it, because not only can it be used in man-made disasters, but also it can be utilized when we have natural disasters as well. So we have some modalities, great modalities. Now, how [do we] support them? In my capacity as a researcher, we can talk about them, we can document them, we can reflect them. There are some international agencies that are working to support those initiatives, and trying to provide them if possible with any resources. Several organizations and even local organizations are working towards supporting those initiatives to sustain these food-related projects or initiatives on the ground and try to sustain them as much as they can. Of course, their capacity is affected by the ongoing siege that [has been going on] since the 2nd of March, nothing is allowed to come inside Gaza. Supporting those initiatives is very important, because I believe that we always need to work on supporting any institutions or any initiatives that sustain the resilience of the Palestinian people on the ground of Gaza.
AD: Let’s talk a little bit more about Al-Azhar, and your department, in particular. As you mentioned, you have been with Al-Azhar and this department pretty much since the beginning. So could you say a little bit about the Department of Agriculture, how this department has changed over time and your own role within it? And especially since you have played a leadership position in the department and the faculty, if you could talk a little bit about how the department has changed and what kind of role you have played, whether that has to do with research projects, student recruitment, faculty, or any aspect that you think is significant.
AAS: At the beginning, when we started, it was a very small faculty with very limited resources. I still remember the first study hall. It was a very small one in a very small building. And at that time, we had even more limited resources to run different departments within the faculty. So it was only one department. [As for myself], I was not even interested in Plant Protection at that time. I was rather [more interested in] Livestock. But that was not [even] an option. It was an obligatory [selection]. We had only one department, so we had to accept whatever was offered at that time. And as I said, at that time, the Israeli occupation was still in Gaza. And after the Ministry of Higher Education or the Palestinian Authority arrived in 1994, things started to change. [A time during which], the economy for Gaza and Palestinian territories was relatively better. And there were some resources that were actually just available for higher education at that time. So the faculty became bigger. And we established two other departments, [such as the Department of] Food Technology and [the Department of] Animal Production. And we had a very important project that was funded by the Luxembourg Government to establish the faculty with the laboratories and with our farm station. And then we [could actually] start our research or knowledge production. Knowledge production at that time was essential because, for us, even an academic institution is also a seed for our independent Palestinian state. So we are building the capacities, we are producing qualified people to run our national institutions, but also we are producing localized knowledge. So, I mean, we can import knowledge, of course, but imported knowledge needs to be tested for adaptability and suitability for socio-economic context and socio-cultural context in Gaza. And therefore, we established our research station, trying to conduct research on water resources, on cropping, on livestock. And that was actually a huge project that was funded by the government of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, that was totally destroyed by the Israelis.
When I graduated, I was hired by the Faculty. And then I was given the possibility to [obtain] my graduate studies [abroad]. When I came back, it was [during] the Second Intifada and we had all the challenges in our economy, but still we actually were struggling. We were struggling, but we were showing this resilience model, trying to work with whatever capacity, whatever resources available to keep our education system. The problem for education is most likely similar to all other sectors in Palestine, because when you think about it, you usually need to think about rehabilitation, rebuilding of what is destroyed, while at the same time, you need to think about building the capacity, doing more for the community. And [we were] always trying to do this while trying to rebuild and rehabilitate. [Always] trying to rebuild and rehabilitate better. And to start with even several initiatives that support the communities. And at the time, even when I just started my role as a Dean of the Faculty, and even several times before [I was], I was thinking about how to extend our mission in academia to serve the community and to solve existing problems that the farming communities in Gaza were facing. Maybe one of the very good examples I would give here is a very interesting project that was funded by a French NGO. It’s called the Islamic Relief France. So it is Secours Islamique France, which is different from Islamic Relief UK, it’s a different organization. That project was actually designed to support, to build the capacities of the farming community to go towards safe agricultural production. Because one of the major challenges in the farming system in Gaza is the intensive use of agrochemicals that is caused because of the scarcity of land and the intensive production model that actually would require intensification of agrochemicals with all its public health and environmental implications. Now, we were trying to introduce an alternative certification for, say, safe products, that certification provided by the Faculty of Agriculture, build the capacities of the farmers, and try to find even a marketing channel for those products. That was really a very successful initiative that we worked on for seven years. But this is an example of how, actually, academic institutions were not only cooperating to produce knowledge and to build the capacities of our engineers, but also we are extending this to provide extension services to our farmers and to change the context towards solving existing problems. And most recently, I think in 2020, we established the Department of Veterinary Medicine. And we changed the name of the faculty from Faculty of Agriculture and Environment to the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. And we were investing as a university, as well as several donors, to build the capacity of that new department that is urgently needed, because we have a shortage in veterinary doctors in Gaza which was urgently needed. And we were working on building the capacities, the laboratories, our praxis; and that was partially achieved, we were working on that. Unfortunately, by the beginning of this war, everything was destroyed.
AD: Your department, or your Faculty of Agriculture and also Veterinary Medicine, is this the only one of its kind in Gaza, or are there other ones?
AAS: It’s the only one. That was established in 1992, and we have the only Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine in Gaza, the only one.
AD: And you train graduate students as well as undergraduates, right? You yourself studied only for college there?
AAS: Yeah, so I did my graduate studies outside, but we are running three graduate programs. So we have like four undergraduate programs and three graduate programs. The three graduate programs in Animal Production and Poultry, Food Technology, and Animal Production and Protection. So those are the three departments. We have graduate programs, and we have four undergraduate programs. Those are the three departments, but we have the Veterinary Medicine program as well [which offer] Bachelor of Science and Master of Science [programs].
Part 3: Assaults on higher education before and after 2023, and the struggle for education under genocide
AD: Let’s talk a little bit about the destruction. So, you mentioned earlier that the faculty came under attack several times, including your farmland that was used for research and for teaching. Could you talk about when these other attacks had happened prior to October 7th, and then we can talk about the post-October 7th period?
AAS: You know, the campus for the Faculty of Agriculture is located in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, and Beit Hanoun is located on the borders with Israel, the northern border. This farm and the building were targeted several times before even the first war in 2008. The building was totally destroyed by 2009, I think, the building of the faculty. But afterward, we were always trying to rehabilitate not only the building. I was abroad, I was not in Gaza, it [the faculty building] was totally destroyed, and then the whole faculty moved to the headquarters. But the farm itself was destroyed several times, and all the facilities there, all the infrastructure, even the lecture hall, the stores, the greenhouses, the meteorological station, our water reservoir, our orchard, were all destroyed several times. And that all was after 2008. During this war, even [prior], every time it is destroyed, we just get some resources to rebuild again. During October 2023, we had the project Save the Children to establish our greenhouses there. And the contractor was working with the land at the time of the war. Unfortunately [now] we cannot even reach this area to see what actually happened. We are quite positive that nothing remained there. We could not see the animals there. We could not reach to see what happened to the animals because it’s an area that is very close to the borders. So nobody can go close to that area at the moment. And because of this, its proximity to the borderline, it was always subject to Israeli intrusion and aggression and destruction. So we always [working on] rehabilitation and tried to get whatever funds from donors to rehabilitate. I still remember it was interesting. One of the donors was coming to my office inside Gaza City, and I was just explaining to them what happened and why we need those facilities to train students, to conduct research, to do this extension services to the community. And the donor at that time, he says, “OK, listen, you are just convincing us to invest money in this area while actually you are describing that was destroyed several times before. What is actually the guarantee that this will not happen again?” I still remember that shortly after one of those massive wars against Gaza, the Israelis were targeting buildings in the neighboring university, the Islamic University, where I can just see the destroyed building from my office. And my office was inside Gaza City. I asked the donor to stand up and to go to the window and join them to the window. And I told them, listen, I mean, if we are going to say that whatever they destroy, we cannot build because they are going to re-destroy it, then I recommend you do not invest anything in Gaza, regardless if it is in Beit Hanoun or in Gaza City. We are not in a border area. We are inside Gaza City, relatively far away from the borders. And please just look here. We have here an education facility that was destroyed by the Israeli forces. And, I mean, if this is actually your intention or the way you think, yes, I just tell you, OK, that could be destroyed. But what actually other options do we have? If you are thinking about the proximity of the borders, this is not a factor because we are inside Gaza. And this is actually [constantly] repeated. I don’t have an exact timeline for this, but that was happening, like on several occasions and sometimes even during wars. One of those massive wars, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021. But also sometimes it was happening between those periods, they call it a limited invasion. And when you think about limited invasion, they can come out along all those borderlines and come inside and destroy and get back. Maybe even nobody would just hear about it in the news because maybe only local news would cover this. But international media will not cover [it]. Like who cares about a research station that was destroyed by Israeli tanks inside Gaza. It is not anything anyone would care to cover, you know.
AD: In these earlier incidents, in addition to facilities, infrastructure and so on, were there other damage and other assaults on either persons of faculty or students or things like your archives, your libraries, your laboratories, etc.?
AAS: Of course, this is a university where you have your laboratory. Our laboratories were destroyed, totally destroyed. The climatology station was totally destroyed. Research station was totally destroyed. Our water reservoir was destroyed. The building for training was destroyed. Our stores were destroyed. And we were always trying to be as careful, very careful to avoid students being exposed, in the case that any aggression is expected to happen or start to happen. We just run to evacuate the students out of the building because we don’t want to have casualties within those buildings. We have never faced like any casualties or even injured people inside the faculty. But of course, I mean, we lost thousands of the students during all the different wars, including the ongoing one. And it happened that we lost even some of our colleagues as well.
AD: Before 2023?
AAS: Yes, of course. Even [during the] Great March of Return, and although I was not really understanding what the logic is behind all this action and I’m not in support of organizing this because that was a big loss for the Palestinians. Thousands of people were killed. Tens of thousands were injured. And when you say injured, it means like it’s a life changing injury, you know. Sometimes I think those who are making such decisions don’t care much about the amount of losses that can happen out of that. But yeah, of course, we lost many of our students.
AD: In addition to Yousef Abu Rabee who you talked about already, if there are other students and also, of course, colleagues who were martyred or who were injured, would you like to share their information with us?
AAS: I would just tell a story of Bilal Ayesh. You know, it’s really touching when you talk about Bilal. Bilal was a star student, and usually, we would get those star students kind of contract to work as instructors. And because of the financial hardship of the university, that was always a struggle of the faculty administration with the university administration to get this. But for me, I always like to support the younger generation because I just look at those generations as the future, not only of the institution, but also of the state of Palestine. And I remember I had the struggle with the administration of the university to get this contract, but that was successful to get his contract as instructor. But in September 2023, one month before the crisis, Bilal was coming to my office to say ‘thank you’ for just getting him the contract. And at the same time, he was coming to ask me about graduate studies. So, he was trying to work on the application for either the Fulbright scholarship or the DAAD scholarship, because I got both scholarships. He wanted me to support him, to write a recommendation, to give him advice and to see where he can apply to which graduate program. You know, at that time, I looked into his eyes and I saw them shining with hope for a bright future. And I was very happy. I was very glad. I saw the future of our institution. I saw Bilal sitting in my seat as the dean in the future of this faculty. And I see the coming generation are coming to take it. And I was very happy about the way he was thinking, the way he was dreaming, the way he was, that he had great dreams. He was killed in October 2023. For me, it was really shocking. It was really something like, how to say that – they are killing the future, the future of Palestine. I know Bilal has nothing to do with anything. He only has to do with his study. He was always thinking about the future, what he would do in his future. And he was killed. But saying this story, I also usually like to tell another story, because listening to the story of Bilal is painful. And thinking about another case, Saleem Maarouf, he’s another student. In 2024, when we decided to start online teaching, that was a decision that was criticized by many people. I mean, people think that we are not realistic, we are dreaming. You know, people live in tents, live with no food, no electricity, no internet. So thinking about education, online education, who’s going to sign up for [it] in such a situation? And Saleem Maarouf actually signed up and joined the courses online. And during the first semester, his house was targeted. So he himself was injured. His family lost the house. He was in the hospital with his family who were displaced in the hospital because they lost their house. And at the time of the midterm exam, there was actually an invasion. They were requested to evacuate, but they just said, “no, we are not evacuating. We have no place to go. And we have as well an injured case. So we will stay there in the hospital, whatever will happen.” The Israeli tanks were surrounding the hospital. And Saleem was texting me from inside the hospital, asking me about a certain topic that was not covered (I did not explain it in the second lecture), and he was concerned if I’m going to bring this in the midterm exam. And, you know, I didn’t know what to do, actually. Should I laugh or should I cry? Or, you know, I got the feeling that this is a message. Yes, they killed Bilal, but Saleem is there. And this is when I just tell this story, I like to tell those two stories. Because the first story reflects their attempt to kill the future, but the second story just tells that we are still there. And yes, they killed Bilal, but Saleem is still there. And this is one of the many examples of students, who despite all the critical, difficult situations, are still there. They are still struggling, [but they are still there.]
Another student, Nermeen Zeitouniyeh – at the time of the finals, she was doing her final test that was supposed to be submitted on the Moodle platform. And on that date, the Israelis attacked the neighbor’s house. And her mother and her sister were killed in that attack. She could not upload it (her final paper) to the platform because of the internet capacity, and she was asking a neighbor who is an instructor in the faculty if she can submit it on WhatsApp, which we do not usually permit, but such example, you know, and with like too many stories of different students [leaves you speechless.] One of my colleagues told me about a female student who was injured and lost her leg and she was in the hospital on the date of the finals. And her family were calling the professor telling him what happened and asking him for an excuse to do the exam on another day. You can imagine, I mean, such a level of resilience of the people or the students, the young people who just still have the hope for a better future – that is what always gives us the message that we should always be there for them as much as we can, because while we are there, they still have this hope for a better future coming.
AD: So what you’re describing in part, of course, is your attempts along with your colleagues and your students to continue the life of Al-Azhar University Gaza. Could you speak a little bit more about those efforts? So you’re conducting education fully online currently, and I understand the servers of the university are held in Jordan? What kinds of obstacles have you been facing other than the very obvious ones, which is that people are being attacked, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have access to the internet or it’s very unstable. In addition to everything else, no food, no water – it’s difficult to fathom even what education under that condition looks like. And yet you are talking about how this does continue. Could you say a little bit more about that? Are you already planning now for the completion of the year? Are there plans for the new academic year? Absurd as that sounds, under conditions of genocide to be talking about this. And yet, shockingly, miraculously, perhaps, this is something that you all are still accomplishing.
AAS: At the beginning of the crisis and for a certain period of time, it was a shocking time for us. At the individual level, we lost our houses, we are displaced, we are threatened, because there was also a very clear targeting of the academia. They killed 117 academics. Three of them are presidents of universities. But after a few months, we started to think, okay, we need to start working. We need to resume our services. And we started to communicate with potential supporters, like in institutions, international NGOs. And then we got like two messages. The first message that was higher education is not a priority right now. Food, shelter, water, this is a priority, but not education. The second message was actually alarming – that we don’t have any education in institutions. We have individual students and schoolers that need to be supported, but not in institutions. And at that time, we decided the attempt of the Israelis to erase the academia and the academic sector should fail. And then we got this statement, and it was a very popular statement, to deliver the voices of academic sectors in Gaza, that they [the Israeli occupation forces] destroyed our buildings, they destroyed the infrastructure, but they did not destroy the institutions. The system is there. For us, universities are about communities. It’s not about buildings. And we are going to resume our education, and we are going to serve the people inside Gaza. And we started in June 2024. Al-Azhar University Gaza was the first to start with several challenges, but we just completed the first semester, the second semester, the third semester, and currently we are starting the fourth semester. This is said, that does not mean we are not challenged. We have too many challenges. The first and the biggest is the financial challenge. We are asking colleagues from inside Gaza who live in tents with no capacities, and they are still willing to provide this while they don’t have any kind of resources, and we are not capable of paying any salary. So therefore, we need the money to sustain operations. And therefore, we worked in the beginning to establish the emergency committee of Gaza universities that was actually established by the three biggest universities in Gaza, the public universities, Al-Azhar University, Islamic University, and Al-Aqsa Universities. And we worked with Taawon NGO. I don’t know if you know Taawon. It is an international NGO, an acknowledged NGO to establish a scholarship fund called ISNAD. And the concept behind it is to raise fund to obtain fees for students who are inside Gaza. By this, we are just sustaining the operation of those universities, but also we are giving hope for students inside Gaza in a better future. We are always just trying to find other ways even to find financial support. But also we have other challenges that are related to the destruction of our laboratories, for example, the means of practical training for the students. So we are trying to substitute this through online teaching, which is not as efficient as it should be. But this is all that we have. We have a lack of human resources – some of our colleagues were killed, some of them are missing, and some of them are in a very critical situation. They cannot actually provide the teaching. So we are also accepting volunteers to provide teaching, mainly from Arab countries because the language of instruction is Arabic. We are also starting to work with international academic institutions in kind of institutional cooperation models. There is really a significant added value to having such cooperation. First of all, this is in support of the cause that the academic institutions who sign memorandum of understanding or even a joint project with one of the universities in Gaza, this is standing with a political meaning that we are against the erasure of academic institutions. So it’s kind of standing for the values of those international academic institutions. This is also a kind of a fruitful cooperation model. I usually say research in Gaza is urgently needed right now. It is urgently needed for two reasons. The first reason, as I said, is documentation of the crisis and the crimes committed through research, but also finding or reflecting the Palestinian narrative and vision of how we should rebuild Gaza. And I believe, you know, of course, like being Palestinian or the solidarity of Palestine is kind of incentive to conduct research there. But even as a researcher in general, it would be really interesting to conduct research in Palestine because it’s a unique situation that humanity has never experienced before. And reflection from Palestine is very important. Maybe the international academic institution, they have the expertise and the resources to conduct research, but they don’t have the outreach. In Palestine, we do not have the resources, but we have the outreach. So such cooperation can achieve urgently needed research, but also can achieve a mutual benefit for both institutions. And a very clear political message that we are supporting the resilience of the academic institutions on the ground of Gaza. So these are the main challenges and the ways we are trying to work towards actually mitigation of those challenges.
AD: How do you think you will be involved beyond your current efforts with reconstruction?
AAS: I mean, very importantly is the advocacy. I feel it is a responsibility for all people who have the chance to deliver the voice of suffering of the Palestinian people is very important. And therefore, I do appreciate what you are doing right now, because if you follow even the media here in the West and you see what is the narrative that is presented there, you feel how important it actually to reflect this narrative. I was discussing with colleagues here, I am 100% against taking women or civilians hostages. But as one example, if you just look at the media here, what they did when the hostages, the female hostages, were released from Gaza. At the same time, there were 90 women and children were released from Israeli prisons. Have you noticed how the media actually were covering here? It’s a micro coverage of each and every one of those women who were released from Gaza. About their family, the suffering, their children, their boyfriends, their community, celebration, what happened to them – which I feel for them. But how is the news about the 90 hostages who were released from Israeli prisons, women and children, and any mention of their names, any mention of their stories? Nothing. Anyone actually try to ask why children are kept in prison? Children, how can they keep children in prison? Anybody asked about this? And this is simply because of the narrative. I mean, this is just like the direction of the public towards the lives of those who do not matter. You know, I don’t like when we say like 55,000 people from Gaza were killed, because I told you how touching the story of Bilal is. Bilal is one of those 55,000. And I’m sure for each and every one of those 55,000 has a touching story. So we are not numbers, we are human. And therefore, I believe, beside my efforts to keep the education and the higher education ongoing, advocacy and the reflection of the Palestinian stories and the Palestinian hope for the future [is very important], because when I tell the stories of my students, I’m just telling that those are human beings who deserve to live better life and who still, despite all what’s going on. You know, to say it frankly, sometimes I get the feeling like I am really depressed. I don’t know if I should just continue what I’m doing, if there is any hope with all that’s going on, but then I get a phone call or a WhatsApp message from one of my students asking about something. I say [to myself] I am outside facing nothing from what they face there, and I get depressed, but those people are inside suffering all this and still they have hope and still they have a question about something that. When my student was asking me about this while he was injured in the hospital, I told him, listen, you know, without sitting for the exam, you passed and you got Excellent. You got what I mean? I mean, this is something and I believe all that I can do right now is to support those efforts to try to sustain this, because the alternative is really horrible. And one day if all those young people lost hope for the future, what do you think the whole situation will turn into then? I don’t know. But I feel that all I’m trying to do is to keep hope.
AD: Any final things you would like to say before we wrap it up?
AAS: Thank you very much for your efforts and for all this time you spent with me.
AD: Thank you. This is truly an honor and we really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.