Mohammed Abu Daya’s WhatsApp profile shows Gaza City as it once was—sunlight glinting off the Mediterranean, fishing boats bobbing near a skyline of high-rises, life pulsing along the shore. Today, that city lies in ruins, and Abu Daya lives in a tent, displaced by war, with no access to his office, his university, or the sea he has spent his life studying. Yet from this place of unimaginable hardship, he continues to publish groundbreaking science on one of the ocean’s most mysterious creatures: the spinetail devil ray.
These graceful giants, with wingspans up to 3.5 meters, glide through the Mediterranean and beyond, their populations now critically endangered. For over a decade, Abu Daya has been one of the few scientists documenting their presence in the eastern Mediterranean, a region long overlooked in marine conservation. His work has shown that Gaza’s coastal waters are not just a marginal habitat, but a vital part of the ray’s range—an insight made all the more urgent by the fact that Palestinian fishers, facing depleted stocks due to longstanding maritime restrictions, sometimes catch the rays as bycatch.
Even as bombs fell and his world fractured, Abu Daya refused to let his research die. In 2025, amid the height of the war, he co-authored a major international study that mapped the migratory routes of spinetail devil rays, proving the ecological importance of the Levantine coast. That paper, built on years of fieldwork and data analysis, would have been remarkable under any circumstances. That it emerged from a tent, with spotty internet and no laboratory, is nothing short of extraordinary.
Before the war, Abu Daya was a lecturer at the University of Palestine and a researcher at Gaza’s National Research Center, both now shuttered. He collected data on rays hauled ashore by fishers, measured their dimensions, recorded their sex and maturity, and built a rare dataset from a region where marine science has long been silenced. Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, a leading Mobula expert and collaborator, has called Abu Daya’s role “invaluable”—the only specialist focusing on these animals in the entire eastern Mediterranean.
Today, his tools are a laptop and a phone. But with them, he still attends virtual conferences, mentors students, and fights for the survival of a species—and a scientific legacy—on the brink. His story is not just one of resilience, but of defiance: a reminder that curiosity and care can persist even in the darkest places. As the sea remains the only constant in a shattered landscape, Abu Daya watches, waits, and hopes for the day he can return to the water.