Dear Micheál Martin and Jim O’Callaghan: Let me study in Ireland so I can help my people in Gaza

An open letter from a Gaza doctor, appealing the refusal of his visa to study in Ireland

Two Gazan students refused study visas in Ireland pose beside a sculpture of Taoiseach Micheál Martin's name, carved in the sand at Gaza.

Dear Taoiseach and minister, I am a medical doctor from Gaza, serving with Caritas Church, where my daily work has shown me why global public health is essential to protecting vulnerable communities in humanitarian crises. 

I have spent years trying to treat people who have lost almost everything a person needs to live: Their homes, their security, access to medical care, and sometimes their hope.

I am now asking Ireland for something that may sound rather ordinary: The opportunity to study for a Master of Public Health Global Health.

I say ordinary because, in most circumstances, a student receiving admission and a full scholarship with an accommodation would have reason to celebrate. 

For me, it has become another uncertainty to survive.

There is an uncomfortable irony here. 

I want to study how to protect public health in communities affected by conflict, disasters, and humanitarian emergencies.

I come from a place where these are not merely subjects in a university textbook.

They are the circumstances in which my people are trying to live.

I have gone to displacement camps to provide medical care to people who desperately need it. 

I have seen what happens when a healthcare system is overwhelmed and essential resources are scarce. 

I have watched the gap between the care people need and the care we are able to provide become painfully real.

And so I want to learn more. I want to understand how to prevent disease, protect vulnerable communities, and help rebuild public health services. 

I want to get knowledge that can make a practical difference.

Apparently, getting to that classroom is proving almost as difficult as explaining why the classroom matters.

I appreciate that a country must have immigration laws and procedures. 

I am not asking Ireland to abandon them. 

But surely the purpose of administration is to serve human beings, not to lose sight of them. 

Surely, somewhere between a file being processed and a decision being made, there should remain room to recognise the person whose future depends on that decision.

A scholarship is an invitation to learn. 

It should not become an invitation to spend months wondering whether learning will ever be possible.

My intention is to put what I learn to work for my people. 

My family is there. My community is there. The children growing up amid this devastation are there. 

My little brother, who was born a month after our father died and never had the chance to know him, is there too. 

When I think about the future, I think about the kind of healthier, safer world we owe these children.

I want to help build that future — not with promises, but with knowledge, professional skills, and practical work.

I am not under the illusion that one master's degree can repair everything that war has destroyed. 

It cannot restore every home, undo every loss or rebuild an entire healthcare system overnight. 

But education can prepare people to do the difficult work of recovery, and public health expertise is essential to that work.

That is why this opportunity matters.

Minister, Taoiseach, Ireland has a proud tradition of education, humanitarian concern and support for human dignity. 

I ask you to consider what those principles mean in a case like mine. Not as slogans in a speech, but as values that can guide a real decision affecting a real person.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

I am a doctor who wants to become better equipped to help his people. I have a place at a university. I have financial support for my studies. I have a clear professional purpose for seeking this education.

I am asking for my appeal to be considered fairly, urgently and with humanity.

There is a bitter irony in a world where we tell doctors to save lives, tell students that education can change societies, and tell communities devastated by disaster that they must rebuild — yet the people trying to acquire the skills to do that work can find themselves trapped in uncertainty before they can even begin.

Ireland cannot end the suffering in Gaza through one visa decision. I understand that. But it can decide whether this particular doctor is given a fair opportunity to pursue his education and prepare to serve his community.

Sometimes compassion does not require a grand declaration. Sometimes it begins with looking at a person’s circumstances carefully, understanding what is at stake, and making a timely, humane and lawful decision.

I do not ask for special treatment because I am a doctor from Gaza. I ask to be considered as a person whose circumstances deserve to be understood, whose educational opportunity is real, and whose ambition is to return with knowledge that his community urgently needs.

I want to study public health because my people need more than doctors who can treat the illnesses they see today. They need people equipped to prevent the illnesses of tomorrow, protect the most vulnerable, and help build a healthier future.

Please help me take the step that will allow me to learn that work more effectively.

I am ready to do the studying. I am ready to do the work. I am asking for the opportunity to begin.

Yours sincerely, Dr NA

Medical doctor from Gaza Incoming student, Master of Public Health Global Health.

Dr NA is one of dozens of Palestinian students granted fully funded scholarships to Irish universities but denied study visas by the Department of Justice. He is currently appealing the refusal of his visa, and his application for a judicial review of that refusal is one of 30 due before the High Court this week. His name is known to the Irish Examiner.