A Palestinian grandfather and his three grandchildren have won a legal battle in their bid to live in the UK after the children’s parents were killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza.
The 62-year-old and the three boys aged 12, 15 and 17 applied to move to the UK to live with his other daughter and her husband, who are themselves refugees from the Palestinian territory. The UK-based relatives are sponsoring the application.
The application by the grandfather and the children, who have been granted anonymity, was refused by an entry clearance officer but the decision has now been overturned on appeal.
The successful appeal contrasts with a court barring a Palestinian woman from coming to the UK from Gaza to receive medical treatment. The treatment would have been paid for by her daughter, who has lived in Britain for 20 years.
The latest case was won on an appeal on the basis of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects an individual's right to a family life.
An immigration tribunal was told that in December 2023, two Israeli rockets fell on the home in Gaza, killing the children’s parents, their grandmother, several siblings and nieces and nephews.
The grandfather is “too traumatised, unwell and impoverished to provide the care that these traumatised, malnourished, destitute, homeless children need, especially when they face imminent death with each attack on Gaza”, the appeal heard.
The tribunal was told by the children’s aunt that the Israeli authorities “asked my family to leave, which they did, but then they were told they could go back”.
“Since they said there would be a ceasefire there have been at least five rocket attacks in the area where my family are living,” she said. “On Eid, Israeli military were shooting at my family but they managed to run away.”
The appeal also heard a statement from one of the children, who said that “since my parents died in December last year” his aunt “has become even closer and more important to me and my brothers”.
An independent social worker told the tribunal there was “evidence of a unique emotional bond between the children” and their aunt.
The relative “appears best placed within the family network to offer the physical and psychological safety they urgently need” and a family reunion “would firmly be in the children's best interests”, said the social worker.
The initial appeal failed on the basis that ties between the UK-based Palestinian family and the grandfather and the children had been “broken” and there was no proof of real dependency going beyond normal emotional ties, a key test for Article 8.
The family took their appeal to the Second Tier Tribunal and Judge Abid Mahmood overturned the lower court’s decision.
The judge said the lower court's “findings were wholly inadequate against the background of the extensive evidence from various sources”.
