An ice cream parlour survives Gaza’s genocide and gives seven students hope

On the coastal road in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, seven university students – four in medicine, two in dentistry, one in software engineering – are behind the counter of an ice cream parlour.One student takes the orders, hastily filling ice cream cups, adding nuts and toppings before handing them over to a line of customers with a smile. Another moves between tables in the small seating area, serving customers, while a third manages the kitchen, keeping everything in order. A fourth handles the accounts, processing every transaction electronically since cash has largely disappeared from Gaza.Behind them all, is one of the founders, Ayyoub Abu Musleh, who is immersed in a call with a supplier, negotiating prices for raw materials that have gone up again due to Israel’s ongoing siege on the enclave.They call themselves “the doctors”, but their regular customers have taken to calling them “the nerds”. It is a nickname the ice cream vendors wear with pride since it acknowledges their lives beyond Flora, the ice cream and juice shop they opened in March to pay for university courses they refuse to abandon.This small business, on the Al-Rashid coastal road in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, is the only way these seven students can stay enrolled at their universities and offers hope for a better tomorrow.Prices at Flora are competitive with products between $1 to $7 [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]Gaza’s higher education system has been largely nonoperational since the genocide in Gaza began in October 2023, with roughly 88,000 university students forced to suspend their studies due to the war.Since then, the education system has been ruined, with 95% of all campuses in Gaza damaged or destroyed, while 195 of 206 buildings have been severely or completely destroyed, according to one 2025 report.For most students living in the besieged enclave, continuing their education was impossible, but Flora’s founders are among the few exceptions, although their journey to establish the shop has not been easy.Jihad al-Saqa, a 20-year-old student in his second year of medical school at Al-Azhar University, described his harrowing experiences before he founded Flora.“I had searched for work all over al-Mawasi, where I live with my family in displacement after our house and land were struck by Israeli air strikes,” he told Al Jazeera. “The jobs I found paid poorly and demanded 12-hour shifts, which were incompatible with the dedication and focus my studies required.”When a friend approached Al-Saqa him to join him at Flora, he didn’t think twice.“Two months in, I’m happy and capable of balancing study and work — despite the physical and psychological exhaustion,” Al-Saqa said. He stands on his feet for around seven hours per evening shift, serving customers with a non-negotiable smile, as he describes it. Hard work certainly, but it pays his tuition fees and helps support his familyJihad al-Saqa is a medical school student and also works at the ice cream parlour [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]Al-Saqa was motivated to study medicine after he memorised 23 out of 30 chapters of the Quran, Islam’s holy book.“I felt that the medical profession is of great benefit to people, that God uses you to benefit and save their lives,” he tells Al Jazeera. “That’s what drives me, as I’m seeking the reward in the afterlife, not the worldly one,” he humbly adds.‘A project born through blood’After the war began, Qassem al-Agha, the only software engineering student in the group and one of Flora’s three co-founders, found it impossible to attend classes at the Islamic University of Gaza.His father’s income, which supports his family of five children, was slashed to $200 a month, not enough to pay for Al-Agha’s university fees, while their family home was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, adding a further burden on the family.Al-Agha then set out on a series of jobs and enterprises to support himself, including a clothing shop and vegetable stall. He then sold cold drinks at