As a student in the law faculty, in May 1956 Belmihoub became one of the first students to respond to the call of the National Liberation Front to serve as a nurse alongside the armed struggle for Algerian independence. Imprisoned in France for her activity providing medical care to Algerian soldiers, she and other women prisoners protested their incarceration in letters which were republished by the French humanitarian organization Secours populaire français, as well as in pamphlets of the Tunis-based Committee of Women Students of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.