The family has been granted the right to live in the UK on human rights grounds after fleeing a war-torn home.
Palestinians have been granted the right to live in the UK after a landmark ruling (Image: Getty)
A family of 18 from Gaza have been granted UK refugee status after the Home Office refused their application. A Gaza-born mother-of-three, who was previously granted asylum, was initially denied permission by the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to bring her extended family to the UK, but she won an appeal on human rights grounds. An immigration tribunal argued that it would breach her right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
In addition to the woman’s three children, both of her parents will move to Britain, as will a brother and his wife and four children; a sister and her four children; and another sister, her husband and three children. The tribunal granted the whole family anonymity. The ruling showed most of the adult applicants could not speak English and that their UK-based sister would be able to accommodate her parents. The UK-based woman and her three children had suffered mental health problems caused by their family’s dire situation in Gaza.
Gaza has been decimated by Israeli bombings (Image: Getty)
As of last September, 50,000 children were believed to have been killed or injured by Israel, as reported by UN aid organisation Unicef.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, warned that the landmark ruling concerning the family, first reported by the The Daily Mail, risked “opening the floodgates to thousands of Palestinians claiming asylum in the UK”.
Philp said the Home Secretary must “urgently appeal this shameful decision”, and said it was “yet more evidence” that shows why the Immigration Tribunal must be abolished. He also called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Reform MP Richard Tice claimed the family’s move would require “huge taxpayer subsidies”. The lower tribunal judge concluded the family would “require access to public funds”.
Their case dates back to November 2023, when the reunification application was submitted. This was rejected, but they won a human rights appeal in the lower immigration court in April last year.
Shabana Mahmood had rejected their application (Image: Getty)
Following this, Ms Mahmood made an appeal to the upper immigration tribunal, which was lost this week.
Upper Tribunal Judge Gemma Loughran said that denying the family permission to come to the UK breached Labour’s obligations under the Human Rights Act.
“The judge concluded that the applicants’ refusal of entry clearance would give rise to consequences of such gravity for the sponsor and her children as to be unjustifiably harsh, such that the public interest was outweighed,” she said.
Under normal circumstances, UK immigration law only allows reunification to happen when there are “close family ties”. This requirement was also waived for some Ukrainian refugees as their circumstances were considered “extremely dangerous”.
Labour suspended the family reunion scheme in September after figures showed the number of refugees’ family members granted UK visas had jumped from 4,300 in 2023 to 20,600 in the year to March.