The UK government will evacuate seriously ill and injured children from Gaza to the UK for NHS treatment under a scheme to be announced within weeks.
Ministers will enable children in severe need to receive taxpayer-funded care. Three children were brought to the UK this year through a private scheme by the charity Project Pure Hope.
A government spokesperson said: “We are taking forward plans to evacuate more children from Gaza who require urgent medical care, including bringing them to the UK for specialist treatment where that is the best option for their care.
“We are working at pace to do so as quickly as possible, with further details to be set out in due course.”
More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza since the outbreak of the war between Hamas and Israel in October 2023, according to Unicef data. Keir Starmer said last week that the UK was “urgently accelerating” efforts to bring children over for treatment.
The government scheme will operate in parallel to the initiative by Project Pure Hope, which was set up to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK privately for treatment.
Through the charity’s initiative, Majd al-Shagnobi, a 15-year-old from Gaza, became the first Palestinian child to be flown to the UK for treatment for war injuries. He required complex facial reconstructive surgery after an Israeli tank shell destroyed his jaw when he was trying to access aid in February last year.
His treatment at Great Ormond Street hospital in London is being privately funded by Project Pure Hope and is being carried out by a medical team who will all work for free.
Earlier this year, the charity secured visas for two girls from Gaza – 13-year-old Rama and five-year-old Ghena – to have privately funded operations in the UK for lifelong medical conditions.
News of the government’s plans comes after domestic political pressure. More than 100 MPs signed a letter coordinated by Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, calling on ministers to evacuate 30 severely ill children to the UK for treatment.
A foreign affairs select committee report at the end of July said ministers had “declined to support a medical evacuation of critically injured children to the UK, involving coordinating travel permits, medical visas and safe transport to the UK, where the children can receive specialised care unavailable to them in Gaza”.
The Guardian reported last month that the government was facing legal action from a law firm acting on behalf of three critically ill children in Gaza.
Other countries have been faster to act. Italy has evacuated dozens of Palestinian children and families for medical treatment, with the first group arriving in January 2024.
The Sunday Times, which first reported the story, cited a senior Whitehall source who said up to 300 children could be brought to the UK from Gaza under the government’s scheme. They will be accompanied by a parent or guardian and their siblings if necessary, and the Home Office will carry out biometric checks before travel, according to the newspaper.
Project Pure Hope welcomed the government’s announcement and said it would be sharing its expertise from nearly two years of successful evacuations.
“Our blueprint can help ensure the UK acts quickly and effectively so that every child who needs urgent care has the best chance of survival and recovery,” a spokesperson said.
The charity has been urging the government to create a scheme similar to the one established for Ukrainian refugees since November 2023.
The UK has been working with the Jordanian government to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza in response to the widespread starvation caused by Israel’s blockade.
Starmer has announced plans for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state in September before the UN general assembly unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire, allows more aid into Gaza, stops annexing land in the West Bank and commits to a peace process leading to a two-state solution.