Antwerp Rector Outraged Over Inaction on 13 Gaza Students

Herwig Leirs, rector of the University of Antwerp, has sharply criticised the Belgian federal government for failing to reach an agreement on 13 students from Gaza who hold scholarships to study in Belgium but cannot leave the territory. Speaking on VRT’s De Ochtend radio programme on 13 September, Leirs said the universities stand ready to receive the students and that their fate now rests on political will. The impasse has split Belgium’s five-party “Arizona” coalition and left the students’ futures uncertain as the new academic year begins.

“We are very disappointed, but also indignant,” Leirs said. “These students are not illegal migrants. They legally received a scholarship and were selected by independent committees. They are people with strong CVs who are already active there, in their community.”

A Dozen Students, a Divided Government

Of the 13 scholarship holders, three are destined for Antwerp: one to study industrial engineering with a focus on electronics and ICT at the University of Antwerp, and two to pursue a master’s in public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITG). That programme trains students to strengthen health systems in low-resource settings — a field of acute relevance to Gaza, where the health system has been severely damaged and infectious disease outbreaks continue, according to the VRT report.

The political deadlock crystallised on 11 September, when the federal cabinet failed to agree on a three-part note proposed by Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot (Les Engagés). The note covered the reception of the 13 scholarship students, the resumption of evacuations from Gaza, and a financial contribution to a WHO and Jordan operation to treat sick children in Jordan. According to VRT News, the proposal was welcomed by two coalition partners, received coolly by a third and fully rejected by the fourth.

Prévot withdrew the note rather than accept a demand from the N-VA to link the Gaza students dossier to two unrelated migration files — the return of Afghans and the creation of “return hubs” outside the European Union. “Because this way one dossier is held hostage by the other, on the backs of people living in misery, I chose to withdraw my note,” Prévot said. “Dignity is not for sale.”

The Case Against — and the Rector’s Rebuttal

The chief opponent of bringing the students to Belgium is Minister of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA). She has argued that admitting the students risks a “domino effect,” warning that they could pursue family reunification or apply for asylum once in the country. “It is presented as if it’s only about 13 people, but we must not forget the domino effect,” Van Bossuyt told VRT’s De zevende dag. “Why then would it not apply to people from Yemen or Sudan? Or why not Afghan girls who want to study here?”

Leirs rejects that framing. “If those people arrive in Belgium, they are not going to an asylum centre,” he said. “They go to a student room at the university, attend class during the day and have a scholarship to live on.” He noted that family reunification involves an entirely different legal system and that the students were selected precisely because they are strongly committed to returning and rebuilding Gaza.

The rector also stressed the modest scale of what is actually being requested. Belgium would not need to deploy soldiers or aircraft; it would only need to ensure the students can safely leave Gaza and reach a neighbouring country where they can take a commercial flight. “Palestine is an official partner country of Belgian federal development cooperation,” Leirs added, invoking the principle pacta sunt servanda — agreements must be kept.

A Wider Visa Bottleneck

The Gaza case sits within a broader problem. On 10 September, Wim Hoste of Ghent University’s Faculty of Bio-Engineering told VRT that roughly 40 international students and researchers were still waiting on visas as the academic year began, many from Bangladesh, India, Morocco and other African countries. He attributed the delays to applications being systematically forwarded to the Immigration Office (DVZ), which cannot process them in time. “We risk missing out on academic top talent, they are an enormous added value,” Hoste said, adding that “the position of Belgium is bizarre, in Canada they actually free up extra money in the budget to attract foreign top profiles.”

Industry federations Agoria and VOKA have backed the call to fix the visa backlog, warning that Belgium cannot afford to lose skilled international talent.

A Human Face on the Impasse

The deadlock has tangible consequences for individuals. Salwa Abu Elhaj, a 23-year-old Palestinian student with a KU Leuven master’s scholarship in Communication Science, won a court ruling obliging Belgium to accept her visa application online, yet she still cannot physically leave Gaza without Belgian evacuation support. “When I received the scholarship, I felt something I had almost forgotten during the genocide: hope,” she told De Wereld Morgen. “I am not asking the Belgian government for a privilege. I am simply asking for the possibility to actually seize the opportunity I have been given.”

Other European countries, including Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom, have organised or are planning “university corridors” to evacuate students from Gaza. Critics argue that makes Belgium’s inaction a matter of political choice rather than logistical impossibility.

What’s Next

With the note withdrawn and consensus absent, Prévot has warned that no change is likely in the short term. “Given the positions taken today, it is to be feared that there will be no change,” he said. The students, meanwhile, remain in Gaza.

Leirs said he and his fellow rectors remain aligned and will keep pressing for a breakthrough. Universities, he added, are being flexible about scholarship start dates and are ready to welcome the students should a deal materialise. “The doors of the lecture halls remain open,” he said.

Whether they ever walk through those doors now rests with a federal government that has so far proved unable to decide.