Hundreds of seriously ill children will be evacuated from Gaza and treated by the NHS, under plans to be announced within weeks.
The government will allow up to 300 young people to enter the country and receive free medical care, according to a senior Whitehall source. This will operate “in parallel” with a scheme run by the group Project Pure Hope, which was set up by volunteer medical professionals to bring sick and injured Gazan children to the UK for treatment.
Only three children have been granted medical visas since war started in October 2023. The approvals followed months of work by the group, which is funded by private donations.
Hamas said on Saturday that it would not lay down arms unless an independent Palestinian state was established. The terrorist group said its “armed resistance … cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer announced that the UK would recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel met certain conditions, including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and reviving the prospect of a two-state solution. He was criticised over fears that recognition might take place without Hamas releasing the remaining hostages abducted from southern Israel in 2023.
This weekend, after returning from New York where he attended the UN’s conference on a two-state solution, the foreign secretary David Lammy directly addressed those concerns.
He told The Sunday Times: “This was a historic step forward not just for those who believe in the just cause of Palestinian statehood, but all those who reject Hamas terrorism and support Israel’s security. Hamas are rightly pariahs who can have no role in Gaza’s future and we have now built a diplomatic consensus around that. But Hamas are not the Palestinian people.
“In New York, we mapped out a clear pathway forwards for security, governance, and reconstruction in Gaza, and for a viable and sovereign Palestine, alongside an Israel secure and at peace with its neighbours.”
Mourners at a funeral for Palestinians said to have been killed by Israeli fire while trying to get aid on Friday, according to medics at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City
MAHMOUD ISSA/REUTERS
Lammy added: “The UK position on recognition is part of this co-ordinated international effort. It must begin with an immediate ceasefire that frees the hostages and ends the agony of their families, and which lifts the inhumane aid restrictions.
“The Israeli government’s drip-feeding of aid has horrified the world. Britain is working intensely with Jordan and other partners to get aid into Gaza by air and land — but only with the lifting of Israeli restrictions can we meet the desperate need at scale. Since the horrors of October 7, we have called for the release of all hostages and for Hamas to play no role in the future of Gaza. Those demands are absolute and unconditional.”
On Friday and Saturday Hamas released videos showing the Israeli hostage Evyatar David, 24, deeply emaciated and digging a hole that he says on camera is his own grave. Relatives of David, who was captured on October 7, fear he has days to live. The family said: “We are forced to witness our beloved son and brother, Evyatar David, deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza — a living skeleton, buried alive.”
Evayatar David was abducted from the Supernova music festival on October 7
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, responded to the videos by accusing Hamas of deliberately starving the hostages as well as the residents of Gaza, by preventing them from receiving aid. “The cruelty of Hamas knows no bounds,” he said. “I call on all the countries of the world to stand against this Nazi-like abuse. Do not stand by. This is a moral test.”
Speaking to hostage families on Saturday, Steve Witkoff, the White House special envoy, is thought to have said that President Trump wanted to “shift” the Gaza policy away from getting a phased ceasefire agreement with Hamas and towards reaching a comprehensive deal that ends the war completely and returns all remaining hostages at once. “President Trump now believes that everybody ought to come home at once — no piecemeal deals. That doesn’t work,” Witkoff said, according to news website Axios.
Lammy, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, are understood to have worked together on the plan to evacuate children from Gaza. Details are expected to be fleshed out in the coming weeks.
Each child being brought to the UK will be accompanied by a parent or guardian and siblings if necessary. Relevant biometric and security checks are expected to be carried out by the Home Office before they travel. Sources familiar with the plans said it was expected that some would never return home. According to Unicef, the UN children’s charity, 50,000 children have been killed or injured in the conflict.
Since war broke out, more than 7,000 patients have been evacuated from Gaza, of whom 5,000 are children, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry. Most have gone to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar.
Some European countries — including Spain, Italy, Ireland, Norway and Romania — have taken in about 200 children, and are expected to welcome more.
Among the three brought to the UK was Majd al-Shaghnobi, 15, who arrived with his mother, brother and little sister last week. In February last year he was trying to collect humanitarian aid in the Kuwaiti area of northern Gaza when an Israeli tank shell exploded close to him, shattering his jawbone and injuring his leg. The jaw injury damaged his ability to eat and to smile, injuries for which he will undergo surgery at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London.
Starmer promised last month to evacuate more badly injured children.
He wrote in the Daily Mirror: “I know the British people are sickened by what is happening. The images of starvation and desperation in Gaza are utterly horrifying. We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance — bringing more Palestinian children to the UK for specialist medical treatment.”
More than 100 MPs signed a letter calling for the government to fast-track the scheme. The letter was co-ordinated by the backbench Labour MP Stella Creasy. She said: “The commitment we all share to help these children remains absolute and urgent — with every day, more are harmed or die, making the need to overcome any barriers to increasing the support we give them imperative.
“We stand ready to support whatever it takes to make this happen and ask for your urgent response.”