Britain has “a clear moral obligation” to provide state-funded medical treatment in the UK to Palestinian children injured in the Gaza war, a doctor for a charity helping to evacuate children from the warzone has said.
The comments from Dr Tareq Hailat of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) came after Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MPs on Wednesday that he would be “happy to do more” if requests for the medical evacuations of Palestinian children were made.
In April, two girls from Gaza arrived in the UK, becoming the first Palestinian children to be evacuated to the country for specialist medical treatment, entirely funded by charitable donations.
The evacuation came through the Project Pure Hope initiative in partnership with PCRF, 17 months after organisations and healthcare workers first started pushing for a legal pathway to bring children from Gaza to the UK for treatment.
An earlier attempt to bring five children for treatment in January 2024 was unsuccessful when they were unable to obtain visas from the Home Office.
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Meanwhile, the need for medical evacuations for children in Gaza, already overwhelming the short list of countries offering help, has only grown with Medicine Sans Frontiers pleading this week for more countries to open their doors.
Currently, healthcare workers tell MEE that around 5,000 children are believed to be among at least 12,000 patients in Gaza that the World Health Organisation says need to be evacuated outside Gaza to access care.
A UN-sponsored report warned this week that ten children a day are losing one or both limbs in Gaza due to Israel’s assault on the Palestinian enclave.
‘Power of the state’
Lammy, testifying before the International Development Committee on Wednesday, was asked by Labour MP Sam Rushworth whether there was “more that we can do for the children of Gaza”.
Rushworth said he and other MPs had recently met with a British plastic surgeon who had just returned from Gaza and showed them video footage and images of children suffering in Gaza.
‘Tens of thousands are orphans and many of them are dying because they are not able to receive medical treatment. To date, just two have entered the UK’
– Sam Rushworth MP
“As you know, tens of thousands are orphans and many of them are dying because they are not able to receive medical treatment. To date, just two have entered the UK,” Rushworth said.
“I understand that there are complexities around this, but I know that I would be happy to take a Palestinian child into my home. I’d be happy to help fund their treatment, but we are not able to without the power of the state behind it.”
Lammy responded: “We have supported the [Project Pure] Hope charity initiative to bring children to the UK. I am happy to do more if those requests come in.”
He then outlined British efforts to treat Palestinians in Gaza, including through field hospitals in Gaza run by UK Med and a polio vaccination campaign.
“I don’t want to suggest that with hospitals bombed and lots of aid not able to get in that people aren’t experiencing real medical emergencies, second by second and minute by minute in Gaza,” Lammy said.
“But we are doing a lot in the medical space particularly and will continue to do so. And if there are more children that we can work with [Project Pure] Hope and others to bring in, of course, we will do that.”
Gaza’s healthcare system has been devestated by Israel’s 21-month assault on the enclave. MSF said this week that Israel, whose authorities must sign off on evacuations, has now “reduced medical evacuations to a minimum”.
Ten children a day losing a limb in Gaza, warns UN-backed body
Read More »
PCRF’s Hailat told MEE that, unlike with Ukrainians, who received direct government support when they were brought to the UK for medical treatment, the two girls that came in April were funded privately “after 17 gruesome months of advocacy”.
“Now, with Israel severely limiting medical evacuations from Gaza since our first cases, Britain has a clear moral obligation: to treat Palestinian children with the same urgency and state backing as it did Ukrainians, and to press Israel to open and guarantee safe passage for those needing life-saving care,” he said.
Labour MP Kim Johnson, who has been pressing the government to bring more Palestinian children for treatment, said it was “disgraceful” the only two had been brought so far.
“We need urgent, coordinated action – not passive promises,” Johnson told MEE.
“Every child deserves a chance at a healthy life, yet Palestinian children are being systematically denied this, while hundreds of Ukrainian children in need of healthcare were welcomed with open arms.”
Johnson said the government should lead other countries to commit to “a bloc-wide humanitarian effort to bring Gaza’s children to safety”.
“It is utterly unjustifiable that we are refusing access to treatment to children from Gaza when we have the capacity and the expertise – we just need the political will.”
