Welsh University under fire for ‘no applications from Palestine’ email
Stephen Price
The University of South Wales has released a statement following international outcry at an email sent to a prospective student in Gaza saying that it is not accepting applications from Palestine.
In a post shared by The Electronic Intifada, a prospective student named Haya posted a partial screenshot of the email she received from the Welsh university on X which has since been shared thousands of times.
The initial email received by Haya from the university, which has since gone viral reads: “Thank you for your recent application to study at the University of South Wales.
“Regrettably, no applications from Palestine are being considered at this time, therefore your application has been withdrawn.”
Responding to the backlash, in a statement shared on the University’s X account on 2 September, the university wrote: “We are aware of an email circulating online regarding an international application. International students are a valued and integral part of our university community.
“We do not have a policy of automatically rejecting applications from Palestinian students. However, due to current visa processing timelines, we are no longer able to accept applications for September 2025 entry from many regions.
“A 2026 application was mistakenly processed as 2025. We’ve reinstated it and contacted the applicant with our sincere apologies. Applications for September 2026 remain open.”
University statement regarding an email circulating online about an international application. pic.twitter.com/gYRgDGb9pv
— University of South Wales (@UniSouthWales) September 2, 2025
“No safe place to go”
According to Electronic Infitada: “Haya, 25, was born in Gaza City. A 2022 pharmacy graduate of Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, she applied to the masters program in health and public service management program at the University of South Wales, as well to other UK institutions.
“She and her family were displaced to the south of the Gaza Strip earlier in the genocide but returned to the north. Now as Israel intensifies its assault on Gaza City, they once again face imminent forced displacement in a territory with no safe place to go.”
Backlash
The initial post has been condemned widely across social media around the world, with many also taking issue with the apology.
Ehsans wrote: “Which other regions you aren’t accepting applications from? You directly mentioned Palestine, not the region i.e middle east.”
View this post on Instagram
Another added: “Hi, I work in HE admin in London, so not new to the issue of visa timelines.
“The email that went out is still callous and thoughtless – anyone with a little bit of awareness would have a kind word or two to say when interacting with a Palestinian in current circumstances.”
Maike Gosch wrote: “Ok, but maybe be more flexible with the processing timelines with Palestinian students also for 2025, considering it might save them from being genocided…?”
Special arrangements
The Home Office has agreed special arrangements for a cohort of students from Gaza to take up fully funded places at UK universities in September.
The students will undergo biometric checks in a third country before travelling on to the UK.
The Israeli government still needs to agree for each student to leave Gaza.
Some are recipients of Chevening scholarships, which are offered to international students to study one-year master’s degrees in the UK.
Around 40 students have been approved for support to come to the UK, the BBC reported.
A Home Office source said: “This remains a complex and challenging task, but the Home Secretary has made it crystal clear to her officials that she wants no-stone unturned in efforts to ensure there are arrangements in place to allow this cohort of talented students to take up their places at UK universities as soon as possible.”
The Government is also working to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK for urgent medical treatment.
More than 50,000 children are estimated to have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023, according to Unicef.
A small number of children have so far been brought to the UK for specialist medical care via an initiative by Project Pure Hope, and they are being treated privately.
Response
A University of South Wales spokesperson told Nation.Cymru: “International students are a valued and integral part of our university community. We absolutely welcome applications from Palestine, and we sincerely apologise for the email that the applicant received. This was an error and does not reflect a policy position.
“All applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, due to current visa processing timelines, we are no longer able to accept applications for September 2025 entry from many regions. This is in line with practices in the UK HE sector. Applications for September 2026 entry are open for all international applicants, including applicants from Palestine.
“In this instance, due to human error, the application was mistakenly processed as a 2025 application. We deeply regret this. The application has now been reinstated, and we have contacted the individual to offer our sincere apologies and to follow up on the application.
“We also completely accept that the email did not fully explain why the application had initially been declined, and we are genuinely very sorry for this. We are taking steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again and to review our correspondence with international applicants so that fuller explanations are provided as appropriate.”
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Not nice of the university to do this. Shameful.
It was a administrative error – mistakenly treated as a application for the upcoming term and not September 2026 (as it should have been). Furthermore it’s not the case – as the frenzied online mob attacking the university have claimed – that the university wont accept applications from gaza (though Israeli and UK.govt restrictions may make this impossible anyway). This story looks like an awful lot of fuss over what was nothing more than a admin error.
It’s as if no one is actually reading the whole article isn’t it!?
Strange that Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries won’t take them.
Why, did you apply to those countries?
Lord no. Awful places. Just odd that none of them want to help the Palestinians. Maybe they don’t like them. No idea.
So you want Palestinians to apply to “awful places”? Why would you want them to live in such places you don’t like. Is that your nature?
Racist faux pax by provincial uni.
This is truly an outrage. Haven’t the poor Palestinian people from Gaza suffered enough to have a narrow-minded ne’er-do-well remove their right to apply to the University of South Wales, Newport . Personally I’d choose a real seat of learning elsewhere in Wales not that Mickey Mouse one like the aforementioned.
Practically speaking, the application may well be pointless anyway, since the Israeli government ensures that the Gaza strip is a rather large internment camp, and for the most part allows people neither to enter nor to leave.
Terrible optics on this for uni of South Wales. “Due to current visa processing timelines, we are no longer able to accept applications for September 2025 entry from many regions.” is exactly what should have been sent in the first place, the original email was absurdly abrupt and being specific like this would have given the applicant the opportunity to respond and correct them about the year of entry. It’s standard practice in a lot of the HEIs I’ve worked in to develop boilerplate/ templates for scenarios like this. Unfortunately due to their recent cuts and redundancies, finer details like… Read more »
They claim there is no policy excluding Palestinian students. Instead, they cited visa processing delays for 2025 as the reason they’ve paused accepting applications from many regions—but said the email was sent in error and that they’ve reinstated the applicant’s file.
Errors do happen. But in situations like this, the impact is amplified. Universities must be especially careful in how they communicate with people from conflict zones, and institutions should have checks in place to prevent insensitive or discriminatory language.