The 80 students at Brigham Young University's Jerusalem Center who arrived after the 22-day war began in the Gaza Strip are getting an early lesson on strife in the Middle East.

"It's more immediate," center director Jim Kearl said. "Tensions are certainly higher."

The students arrived Jan. 6, just days into the war, which raged until Israel and Hamas called a cease-fire a week ago. Israel killed 1,300 Palestinians and obliterated hundreds of structures during its attacks in Gaza. The Hamas government, which controls Gaza, killed 13 in Israel.

BYU did not consider shuttering the center or sending students home -- as it did in 2000 -- for several reasons, Kearl said.

The center hosted no BYU students for six years because of civil unrest.

The Jerusalem Center is about 80 miles from Gaza, at its nearest point, and students do not take field trips to areas within range of Hamas' rockets, he said.

Moreover, it appeared clear that the fighting would not spread outside Gaza.

"None of the program activities are at risk, nor is the center at risk," Kearl said.

Students' parents gathered at BYU for a briefing the day before their children went to Israel. No one backed out, he said.

Kearl said the center's administrators make "hour-by-hour" decisions about where students are allowed to go. For a couple days, students were not allowed to wander alone in the Old City. Students are rarely taken to Jericho and Bethlehem, which are near the volatile West Bank.

The center employs both Palestinians and Israelis, and forbids political discussions among employees, Kearl said.

However, instructors are encouraged to share their perspectives in modern Near East history classes, taught by both Palestinians and Israelis. The students also take Hebrew from Israelis and Arabic from Palestinians.

"We caution the students to be slow in making decisions, that these are complex matters and there is a lot to learn," Kearl said. "They ought not come with preconceived notions."

Two former BYU professors who have spent time in the Middle East say Israel's assault on Hamas in Gaza, which had been firing rockets into southern Israel for years, was clearly planned to end before President Obama took office.

"They wanted to do it in the last days of the Bush administration, which would not try to rein them in," said Bonner Ritchie, a retired professor of organizational behavior who recently returned from teaching in Jordan.

Both Ritchie and Omar Kader, who formerly taught political science at BYU, see the war as one neither side expected to win; it was about showing power.

"The ratios [1,300 Palestinian deaths to 13 Israeli deaths] are always a measure of Israel's power and a reminder to the Palestinians and the world," Ritchie said. "They [Israelis] don't assume that's the final word. It's a statement in the process of peace negotiations."

And by not backing down, Hamas made clear it won't simply go away, he said.

Israel, said Kader, may have intended its destruction and killing of civilians to "scare the hell out of everybody," but "they have no idea how much they've enraged the Palestinians."

Still, both Kader and Ritchie hope the Obama administration can help put the Middle East back on a path toward lasting peace.