In the midst of deadly unrest, which the opposition claims has resulted in the death of hundreds of protesters, Tanzania’s president Samia Suluhu Hassan has been chosen as the winner of the nation’s presidential elections.
Published On 1 Nov 2025
Two weeks ago, world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh declared once more that the Middle East had found peace. The Palestinians, the people who must live in peace, were excluded, as with previous declarations of this nature.
The world is occupied with finding the bodies of its dead captives while Israel holds the fragile ceasefire hostage right now. There is no mention of the Palestinians’ right to search for and honor their own dead and express their grief in public.
The residents of Gaza are enthralled by the idea of reconstruction. Those who demand it from abroad seem to only consider pouring concrete, rehabilitating infrastructure, and clearing rubble. No mention is made of rebuilding people, restoring their institutions, standing, and sense of belonging.
Palestinians require this, of course. The real reconstruction of Gaza needs to focus on the people there, not the reconstruction of classrooms and learning. Young people who have endured the unthinkable and still dare to dream must be the first to do so. No rebuilding effort can be sustained without them, especially without Palestinian educators and students at the center.
Palestinians who have been the most affected by the genocide are not included in the current plans for governance and reconstruction of Gaza. Many of these plans are meant to control rather than empower, with the intention of installing new supervisors rather than developing local leadership. They place Israel’s security preceding the rights of the Palestinians over their own security.
In the Palestinian context, we have seen dependency, frustration, and despair as a result of this exclusion. We have seen the crucial role education plays in Palestinian society as scholars who have spent years working alongside Palestinian academics and students.
We think that education, including higher education, must be the first step in the reconstruction process. Additionally, the Palestinians themselves must be in charge of that process. Palestinian educators, students, and academics have already shown that they have the will to endure and rebuild.
For instance, Gaza’s universities served as resilience models. Professors and scholars continued to teach and research in makeshift shelters, tents, and public squares despite their campuses being torn to the ground, supporting international partnerships and serving young people who are most important to society.
Universities in Gaza serve as sanctuaries of thought, compassion, solidarity, and continuity, the fragile infrastructure of imagination.
Who will provide training for the doctors, nurses, educators, architects, lawyers, and engineers that Gaza needs? Who will provide the foundations of any functioning society, which are safe spaces for dialogue, reflection, and decision-making?
Without strong educational and cultural institutions that restore confidence, restore dignity, and sustain hope, there can be no hope for the Palestinians.
Something extraordinary has occurred over the past two years. Campuses of universities all over the world have become a source of moral awakening, from the United States to South Africa to Europe to Latin America. Students and professors have joined forces to demand justice and accountability for the genocide in Gaza. Our perceptions of universities as crucibles of conscience have been brought up in their sit-ins, vigils, and camps.
This global uprising in education served as a reaffirmation of what scholarship is all about rather than just symbolic. When students take disciplinary action to defend their lives and dignity, they serve as reminders that knowledge that is alien to human nature is pointless.
The level of engagement and the reconstruction of Gaza’s universities must be based on the solidarity they have shown.
Universities around the world must listen, work together, and commit to a long-term commitment. They can collaborate with Gaza’s institutions, exchange knowledge, fund research, and aid in the reconstruction of a society’s intellectual infrastructure. Small steps like mentorships, joint projects, remote teaching, and open digital resources have the power to change the world.
What can be achieved by sustained cooperation include initiatives like those of Friends of Palestinian Universities (formally Fobzu), the University of Glasgow and HBKU’s summits, and the Qatar Foundation’s Education Above All. The need for a sense of solidarity must now be heightened, with Palestinian leaders acting on their advice and respect for one another.
The international academic community is morally obligated to support Gaza, but it is necessary to avoid paternalism. Reconstruction should be a justice-based act rather than a charitable gesture.
A blueprint from the West or a template from a consultant are not necessary for the Palestinian higher education sector. Partnerships that listen and act, and build capacity in Palestinian terms are necessary. Long-term relationships are necessary for it.
Reconstruction is moral as well as technical. From within Gaza itself, shaping a new political ecology should emerge, using actual experiences rather than imported models. Only one way out of the perpetual cycles of destruction can be through the slow, generational work of education.
Scientific, medical, and legal ingenuity is required for the challenges ahead. For instance, asbestos from destroyed buildings is now a source of contamination in Gaza’s air, putting an end to the lung cancer epidemic. Simply put, that risk calls for urgent research collaboration and knowledge sharing. The lifeblood of scholarly activity requires time to reflect and consider, as well as conferences, meetings, and scholarship exchanges.
Then there is the chaos of inheritance and property ownership in a region that has been the site of a genocidal army’s bulldozing. To address this crisis, restore ownership, resolve disputes, and ensure the preservation of documents for future justice, lawyers and social scientists will be required.
Additionally, the Palestinian people are the victims of numerous war crimes. People will be guided by forensic archaeologists, linguists, psychologists, journalists, and forensic anthropologists to understand grief, preserve memory, and express loss in their own words.
Every discipline has a role to play. They are connected through education, which transforms knowledge into hope and survival into hope.
Gaza must also have room to mourn and preserve memories as it recovers from the genocide, because truth without truth is lost. Without grief or loss of name, there can’t be reconciliation.
Every destroyed house, every abandoned family, and every lost family should be preserved as a part of Gaza’s history, not just in the name of convenience. New medical approaches will unavoidably emerge from this challenging process. Justice is based on the principles of memory.
Through the formation of sorrow and the formation of the soil from which resilience springs, education can also help in this area through literature, art, history, and faith. The more-than-human-world can also be healed through education, and only then will we have, in the words of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, “all that makes life worth living” once more.
Cranes and engineers will of course be needed to rebuild Gaza. More importantly, it will call for competent teachers, students, and academics with both academic and practical knowledge. Instead of using cement mixers, curiosity, compassion, and courage to bring about peace.
The universities of Gaza are still alive despite the rubble, the ashlaa, the strewn body parts of the staff and students we have lost to violence, and they are also alive today. They are the ones who preserve its memory and determine its future, providing evidence that education is the first step toward lasting peace and that learning itself is a form of resistance.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are accused of arranging troop arrests for their own soldiers in an effort to spread the blame for widespread atrocities in El-Fasher, Sudan. As the RSF advances and thousands of civilians are still missing, the UN issues a warning about a catastrophic situation.
Published On 1 Nov 2025
After canceling his famous party, Jonathan Ross was spotted wearing a spooky Halloween outfit outside of his north London home this week.
The 64-year-old TV host was spotted wearing a haunting costume as she rocked white horns, face paint, and a dark green cape on Friday night. Jonathan was seen wearing the spooky costume and handing sweets outside the front of his home, which was decorated with spider’s webs, skeleton bones and spooky statues.
The chat show host recently revealed that he wanted to stop organizing his iconic annual Halloween gatherings.
He made the confession after he appeared on Celebrity Traitors, where his time as a Traitor came to an end on Wednesday night. He was the first Traitor to be caught and subsequently banished from the roundtable, while fellow Traitors, Cat and Alan, remain in the game.
Reflecting on his stint on the show, Jonathan admitted the end of his time as a Traitor marked the end of an era for his famous Halloween parties. The star revealed none of his cast mates would be attending a bash this year – as he wasn’t putting on a party at all. “No, I’m afraid not,” Jonathan told Ed Gamble on a bonus podcast episode of The Traitors: Uncloaked when asked if he’s throwing a Halloween party this year. “I might do another one before I go, but they cost a fortune.”
The broadcaster’s Halloween parties have long been the talk of the showbiz world, taking place at his Hampstead home and attracting a host of celebrity guests. However, Jonathan cancelled the festivities during the pandemic and decided against throwing another party at home after lockdown restrictions lifted.
He explained that concerns about family dynamics were also a factor. His daughter, Betty, has fibromyalgia, and he thought it was unfair to host a lavish party at her home while she is ill.
One of our children has fibromyalgia, which is very crippling, and one of our kids is not well. We are taking care of her while she’s back home with us. One of my children is locked in a room upstairs, and I was like, “I can’t in good conscience have a big loud fun party downstairs.” He claimed that it would resemble something from a horror novel.
He held his annual celebrity-filled soiree at Camden Nightclub, KOKO in 2022, and the evening’s festivities were rescheduled for home in the years.
Jonathan has still made his London home a spooky spectacle for trick-or-treaters this year despite missing the big Halloween blowout, keeping the festive spirit alive for younger fans.
Jonathan was questioned about friendships that he and other people on the show made on the Traitors podcast. Joe Marler, a rugby star, mentioned past connections to his parties in his interview, “Joe Marler,” and he claimed that he had met him several times while performing at his parties on Halloween. *
Jonathan continued to recite other cast friendships, but Ed quickly brought up the larger picture. The main takeaway I took from that, Jonathan, was that you are no longer hosting Halloween parties.
Next week’s episode of The Celebrity Traitors will feature Faithfuls Joe Marler, Nick Mohammed, and David Olusoga, as well as Traitors Alan Carr and Cat Burns in a head-to-head fight to raise money for their chosen charities.
Chat show queen Lorraine Kelly has plenty to look forward to, from her ongoing chat show on ITV to a new book and even a travel series. But what she’s extremely excited about as we catch up with her exclusively for Notebook, is her only child, daughter Rosie’s summer wedding to fiancé Steve White.
The enthralling TV host admits that she is counting down the days until her daughter, age 31, knots the knot, adding that the day will be “our family, his family, and friends.” The wedding, the bubbly 65-year-old tells us is scheduled for July, in Perthshire.
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And there’s one girlie element of the wedding prep that she can’t wait for, she confesses. “We’re going to look at wedding dresses, me and Rosie, her maid of honour Amber and Mark Hayes [the fashion stylist fromLorraine’s show]. It will be like an episode of Say Yes To The Dress!”
Lorraine, who has been. married to her cameraman husband Steve Smith for 33 years, also laughs that there’s also the risk that Rosie’s adorable daughter Billie, born last August, will totally steal the show – as she has a special role on her parent’s big day. “I did say to Rosie, ‘You do realise with all this planning about what you’re going to wear, in reality, all eyes will be on Billie Boo as the flower girl! She’ll steal the show.’”
The Scottish TV star is totally enamoured with little Billie, now 14 months, as she reveals during our interview – and admits that becoming a granny is one of the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Explaining that her new role has allowed her to create more time for the people she loves, she says, smiling: “Don’t go out with people you don’t like – spend more time babysitting!”
She’s open to the fact that she is cruel to her granddaughter. She has a new obsession, according to Minnie Mouse. So, of course, I’ve been searching for Minnie right away online. She’s probably now too sluggish and bored”!
She continues, “Billie is so gorgeous. She is wonderful, talking rubbish, and crawling almost walking. When she sees me, her lovely little face sparkles in the sunlight. She has such a positive attitude. She occasionally refers to me as Banana, and occasionally as Nana. I’ll respond to any question, I don’t care.
“With Rosie and working so hard, it was rush rush to get her to eat, read a story, sleep – now I can take my time and savour it all. And on the rare occasions Billie stays with me and Steve, it’s the best thing in the world.”
Rosie, a journalist and podcaster, revealed her boyfriend Steve had popped the question last June, just two months after announcing she was expecting her first child.
Sharing a carousel of images to her social media, she showed off a snap of her engagement ring, while cradling her bump, with the caption: “There are too many lovely things going on and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. Everyone always told me you’ll know when it’s about to happen but I had absolutely no idea, but I have a lifetime to get you back @stevewhite94.”
In Novi Sad, Serbia, on the first anniversary of the tragedy that claimed 16 lives, thousands of people sat in silence for the 16 victims of the train station roof collapse. Many attribute the tragedy to corruption and government neglect.
Published On 1 Nov 2025