Gazan dentistry student embarks on new passion following arrival in Egypt

GIZA, Egypt: When 22-year-old Palestinian dentistry student Salma Shurrab left Gaza to Egypt following sixty days of war, she made sure she had her journal in her bag.

Shurrab fled Gaza with her family following months of fighting which has reduced much of her city to a wasteland.

The young student considers her journal, which includes memoirs, scraps of paper and pictures documenting her life “before war, during war and after war”, as her therapy and way to cope with her experiences of war.

“When I first travelled to Egypt and I saved myself, I checked my journal and I realized this is the only thing I have left from Gaza,” Shurrab said as she held onto her notebook.

“(When) I miss my life there (in Gaza) and I miss my relatives and my home, I open my journal and I find them still here, I find their words are still here and their memories are still here,” she added.

Shurrab was in her senior year at Al Azhar University in Gaza when the war broke out.

She explains that she was unable to obtain any formal documentation from her university to continue her studies abroad.

This is when she decided to utilize her passion in art journaling and teach others how to use it to support their own mental wellbeing.

A view of Salma's journal, which shows a portion of her second displacement to another area deemed safe away from Gaza, in Cairo, Egypt. - REUTERS

Salma talks about her journaling and how each person in the workshop can create their own journal and document their journey, in one of the workshops that she began in Egypt after leaving Gaza with her brother, in Cairo, Egypt. - REUTERS

She has now become a young instructor and mentor for other women, teaching them how to create their own art journals.

“I realized the psychological support is what I need the most and I decided at the time when there’s no university, I can continue supporting other people psychologically in the same way I found support, which is journaling,” she explained.

Shurrab hopes that one day she will be able to return to Gaza and provide Palestinians with the psychological support “they didn’t know they needed.”

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's subsequent military campaign in Gaza, the enclave's health ministry says.