Home Affairs Correspondent
Cross-party MPs have urged Home Secretary to intervene after lawyers claimed Palestinians with relatives in Britain are being prevented from travelling to the UK despite having permission to come.
More than 85 MPs have demanded that the Home Office stop blocking women and children from Gaza from joining their families in Britain, amid mounting concern over the fate of Palestinians caught up in the war.
Labour MP Kim Johnson has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood calling for urgent action, with the letter backed by MPs from Labour, the Greens, Liberal Democrats, the SNP and the parliamentary Independent Alliance.
The MPs say Palestinian families in Gaza who had already applied to join immediate relatives in Britain have been left stranded after the Government suspended refugee family reunion applications.
The Home Office suspended the applications last September pending the introduction of tougher rules, which have yet to be announced.
But MPs claim that, in some cases, Palestinians have been told by the Foreign Office that arrangements have been made to evacuate their relatives from Gaza, only for the process to be blocked by the Home Office.
The letter alleges that lawyers representing the families have reported the Home Office refusing to provide the necessary assurances for onward travel and, in some cases, using legal challenges to prevent relatives from entering Britain.
The MPs say this appears to amount to harsher treatment of Palestinian families than refugees from other countries seeking to reunite with relatives in the UK.
Johnson said: “Family reunification should never be treated as a political bargaining chip.”
“For families enduring the horrors of Gaza, it is a lifeline – often the only hope of safety and the chance to hold their loved ones again.”
She added: “At a time of unimaginable loss and trauma, the very least we should be doing is ensuring those with a legal right to be together are not torn apart by needless Home Office obstruction.”
The MPs have also raised the cases of two Palestinian children, 12-year-old Mahmoud Mansi and 15-year-old Obaida Atwan, who were evacuated from Gaza and met former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last December.
According to the letter, the children were promised that efforts would be made to reunite them with family members still in Gaza.
But MPs say the children have heard nothing further in the months since.
The cross-party group has also questioned why the Government’s pledge to bring 300 children from Gaza to Britain for life-saving or life-changing medical treatment remains unfulfilled.
The MPs are calling on Mahmood to urgently restore the family reunification process for Palestinians and work with the Foreign Office to evacuate people who have already been granted permission to come to Britain.
They are also demanding assurances that Palestinians from Gaza are treated in the same way as refugees from other countries applying to reunite with their families.
Among those backing the letter are Labour MPs Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott, Clive Lewis, John McDonnell and Abtisam Mohamed, alongside Green MPs Sian Berry, Carla Denyer and Hannah Spencer.
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
Photo: Labour MP Kim Johnson (right) wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood , urging her to allow Palestinians in Gaza with family in Britain to join their relatives. (Credit Mahmood: Jonathan Chen/Home Office; Johnson: © House of Commons)
