'Left to die': British families call for Ukrainian-style visa scheme to get loved ones out of Gaza
British families and campaigners are calling on the Home Office to introduce a Ukrainian-style visa scheme to help get their loved ones out of Gaza, as the war continues to rage on.
Shahd Abusalama, a British citizen who first came to the UK in 2014, told ITV News she feels "abandoned" by the government despite her numerous appeals to get her extended family out of Gaza.
A visa scheme to help with this, she says, is "long overdue" as her extended family - dispersed in the south and north of the territory - are faced with starvation and a constant barrage of Israeli missiles.
Her family home has already been "bombed and burned down" while in October 2023, a bomb killed 22 of her extended family and friends in their home.
"We need to have the choice to bring our families home and save them until the bombs stop falling - even if it is just temporary. We are just asking the Home Office to treat Palestinians as humans," she says.
More than 70 charities, law firms, and organisations sent a letter to Home Secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday, in which they claim existing immigration routes out of Gaza "are insufficient and not working”.
"Unlike in the case of British nationals, for whom the British government has facilitated evacuation to Egypt, the British government is not facilitating safe passage for Palestinians in Gaza seeking to reunite with their family members in the UK," the letter says.
Under the current system, Palestinians need to submit their biometric data to file an immigration application to the UK, but the only visa application centres are in neighbouring Egypt, which charges exorbitant fees to allow Palestinians to exit the Strip.
Signatories of the letter - organised by the Gaza Families Reunited campaign- include the Refugee Council, Care4Calais and the Helen Bamber Foundation as well as law firms Birnberg Peirce and Duncan Lewis.
A spokesperson for the Home Office did not respond to ITV News' request for comment, but the department previously told The Guardian it has no plans to establish a separate route for Palestinians to come to the UK.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 32,000 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli military action, including around 13,000 children.
Currently, there is only one exit route out of Gaza via a crossing in the southern city of Rafah, which has also become the latest target of Israel's campaign against Hamas.
Only a few Palestinians have been allowed to evacuate to Egypt, mostly to receive urgent medical treatment.
Ms Abusalama tells ITV News she also recently paid "a lot of money" to get her immediate family out of Gaza.
Her parents have since moved to Spain, where she visits to take care of them. She says she can't bring herself to return to the UK at the moment.
"I had to get escape, it was suffocating, it felt unsafe, and it felt alienating. Spain has shown much more humility in response to what is happening in Gaza," she adds.
Ms Abusalama was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in northern Gaza but came to the UK in 2014.
There, she completed her MA at SOAS and PhD at Sheffield Hallam University, where she also specialised and taught in media studies. She was granted citizenship in June 2023.
Her local MP, Harriet Harman, whom Ms Abusalama appealed to on numerous occasions has also not responded to ITV News' request for comment.
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