British court rules UK must ask Israel to help Palestinian family leave Gaza

A Palestinian family stuck in Gaza despite having permission to join a relative in Britain are given a lifeline as London’s High Court rules that officials must reconsider their refusal to ask Israel to let them leave.

The Palestinian couple and their four children were given permission to enter the United Kingdom to join their relative, a British citizen, earlier this year. To get their visas, the family need to travel across Israel to Jordan to provide biometric data — but Israel will only give permission to leave at the request of another state.

The Foreign Office argued that Britain can offer such support only in exceptional circumstances and urged caution over “expenditure of political and diplomatic capital.”

But Judge Martin Chamberlain rules that officials had failed to consider whether having the right to enter the UK constituted an exceptional circumstance. The Foreign Office does not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jenni Whitaker, a lawyer representing the family, says they hope the foreign ministry will now “do the right, just and humane thing and urgently agree to assist our clients.”