Nidaʾ ʿAffanah (Nidāʾ ʿAfāna) (نداء عفانة) was from Dayr al-Balah Governorate in the central Gaza Strip. She grew up and lived with her family in al-Maghazi Refugee Camp. In her professional life she was both a pedagogue and a practitioner: she taught General Biology at the University of Palestine and worked as an educational supervisor at Islamic University.  

Professor ʿAffanah completed a master’s degree in Education at Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) in 2013. Her thesis focused on and evaluated different strategies for teaching the sciences to high school girls in Gaza. Seven years later — in 2020, she earned a doctorate in Education  from the Department of Curriculum and Teaching Methods in the Faculty of Education at IUG. Her areas of expertise were evaluation and measurement. Building upon and moving beyond her earlier research, she defended a thesis entitled: The Effectiveness of a Proposed Educational Program in Science based on De Bono’s Theory for Developing Lateral Thinking Skills, Self-Regulation of Learning, and Creative Problem Solving among Eighth Grade Female Students in Gaza. 

Just one year after receiving her doctorate, an article Professor ʿAffanah had co-authored and that was based on her thesis was published in the Journal of the Islamic University for Educational and Psychological Studies (2021). 

Nidaʾ ʿAffanah was killed in the early afternoon on 2 November 2023 when, without prior notice, an Israeli airstrike hit the ʿAffanah family home in al-Maghazi Refugee Camp. (It is worth noting that between 17 October and 24 December 2023, the camp was targeted and hit by Israeli forces on at least five separate occasions.) Thirteen members of her family were killed, including five young children. Both her parents, three brothers and her three-year-old daughter were killed in the strike, as well as four niecesand nephews and a sister-in-law. Her husband, ʿAli Hisham Said al-Quraynawi (Qirināwi), a university lecturer and PhD holder, was killed in an Israeli airstrike 10 days earlier (see bio in this archive).

Nidaʾ ʿAffanah was 34 years old. She was a scholar and a professor. She was also a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt and a wife. 

(Nida’ ‘Affanah, left, and colleague Samar al-‘Abadla)

Photo credits: IPS; elagha.net