Home Office blocking evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza | Immigration and asylum
The Interior Ministry is blocking the evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza, even though the State Department says it is ready to move people out of the war-torn area.
Last September, the Home Office announced it was suspending refugee family reunification applications and that new, more restrictive rules would be announced in the spring. No statement has been made so far and the process remains suspended.
Evaluation of applications made before the announcement continues. However, families in Gaza who applied to be reunited with an immediate family member before the suspension were prevented from joining their loved ones in the UK.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are participating in the evacuation efforts from Gaza. Currently, families with the right to leave are being evacuated through Jordan. But the Home Office is not providing the required onward travel assurance (OTA) and is resorting to legal challenges to stop these families coming to the UK, sometimes assigning more than one senior lawyer to a single case.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs says that although the visa center in Gaza has been closed since October 2023, biometric information was collected before the families went to Jordan. Other European countries such as Belgium, France, Italy and Ireland are facilitating such evacuations, and the Foreign Office has said it is willing to evacuate families.
Lawyers for families trapped in life-threatening conditions in Gaza say the Home Office is taking a harsher stance against Palestinian families than it does towards refugees from other countries hoping to reunite with loved ones in the UK. They say that in some cases the Home Office has stated that although some refugees in the UK were given permission to stay because they were being persecuted by Hamas in Gaza, their family members, including young children, posed a security risk because they came from “an area where terrorists are operating”.
The Guardian previously reported on the case of PhD student Bassem Abudagga, who was separated from his family. Although the Foreign Office agreed to help evacuate his family, the Home Office said authorities would have to wait until December to decide whether to grant an OTA.
In a communication with Abudagga’s lawyers on 15 July 2026, in response to accounts of unsanitary conditions, infested tents and frequent bombings, the Home Office said: “Although this is acknowledged, the conditions your clients face in Gaza alone are not considered coercive conditions under the Convention. [relevant] guidance.”
In another case, a Palestinian refugee in the UK is separated from his wife, three children aged nine, 12 and 14, and his 17-year-old nephew, whom they adopted after the teenager was orphaned by war.
he said: “My family is in constant danger and I worry about them every minute of every day. The UK government promised to help my family but has now backtracked.”
“They say my family could be dangerous because terrorists are operating in Gaza. I don’t understand how a mother and her children can be considered a security threat. The State Department has offered to evacuate my family, so why is the Home Office doing everything it can to stop this?”
Sarah Crowe, a solicitor at law firm Leigh Day, which represents some of the families trapped in Palestinian territory and hoping to be reunited with their immediate families in Britain, said: “The UK government has abandoned vulnerable families in Gaza after promising to help them. The Home Office is preventing families from being reunited, while the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is ready and willing to evacuate them.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “As part of our reforms to create a fairer asylum system, family reunification will no longer be automatic. Those wishing to bring family members to the UK will need to meet stricter criteria.”
