In the midst of Gaza’s devastation, a young student from Khan Younis has become a symbol of quiet resilience. Living in a makeshift tent on the ruins of her family home, Shatha Hussam Al-Masri marked her academic achievement by taking a photograph she wished her father could have captured himself. She passed her final secondary-school exams with an impressive 92.3% in the scientific stream, whispering to the memory of her late father that she would pursue the dream he had always encouraged: to become a doctor.

Her father, photographer Hussam Al-Masri, was killed during the ongoing genocidal war only weeks before her exams. His death, alongside several of his colleagues inside the Nasser Medical Complex, shattered the sense of security the family had been trying to rebuild after multiple displacements. For Shatha, the loss struck at the worst possible moment, draining her ability to study and leaving her suspended between grief and duty.

What ultimately drove her forward was a promise she felt she owed to the man who spent years documenting Gaza’s reality through his lens. She recalls the moment she learned her results with pride overshadowed by absence, a triumph she desperately wished he could have witnessed. Even so, she chose to celebrate where her home once stood, turning ruins into a backdrop of defiant hope.

For many young people in Gaza, education has become both an act of survival and an act of resistance to despair. Shatha’s message to future generations reflects this spirit: that no dream is too distant, and that ambition must endure even when everything else collapses. Her success comes as thousands of students sit their exams under the weight of displacement, bereavement and the relentless consequences of the genocidal war.