Dozens of Gaza students who won scholarships to universities in Italy are still waiting to be evacuated due to bureaucratic red tape, leaving qualified students in a deadly conflict zone, AFP has found.
Although more than 200 Palestinian students have been successfully enrolled in Italian colleges through a government university corridor project started in 2025, others have been left behind.
About 50 students are still awaiting clearance to leave the Israeli-occupied territory where most higher education institutions have been destroyed -- despite having met the same requirements of previous Gazan students now in Italy, non-governmental organisations say.
Between September 2025 and June, 246 scholarship recipients from Gaza were flown to Italy and San Marino in a series of evacuations through Italy's "IUPALS" program for Palestinian students, according to the foreign ministry.
But there have been no evacuations since June 1, said Anna Giada Altomare, founder of the Fiori dai Cannoni charity that helps the accepted students, who cited conflicting rules and a lack of transparency within the program.
