When his three-year-old son asks why they cannot be together, his Palestinian father tells him the border is closed. He is always asking me, can you come and take us?” Separated by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, they speak over WhatsApp whenever the internet connection allows. The father has been granted protection in Britain, while his wife and their two children, remain trapped in a tent in Gaza.
I am so scared that something bad has happened to her or the children.” Sometimes, he goes to the park to clear his head, and sees children playing with their parents. Without my family it is impossible to enjoy anything. I worry about them all the time.” Lawyers and rights groups estimate there are between 250 and 300 people who are seeking through the courts to have their immediate family join them from Gaza but remain separated.
On September 30 , an Upper Tribunal ruled to reunite the families in the UK, but the Home Office is appealing the decision and is refusing to waive the requirement for the families to provide biometrics, despite there being no registration facility in Gaza. This is prolonging their separation as Israel continues to bombard the enclave despite a so-called ceasefire agreement in October 2025. A second family that spoke to Al Jazeera also requested anonymity.
Earlier this month, shrapnel from an Israeli bomb damaged their home. The mother told Al Jazeera they have since been displaced again. They bombed the area next to us last night,” she said.
They were all screaming and crying and I kept telling them everything will be OK.” Asked what she would like most in the world, her youngest daughter answers: “To go to my baba with my sisters and my mama.” Decla Palmer, a solicitor at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit who represents the families, told Al Jazeera: “To hold your children and keep them safe from harm is the most basic wish of any parent. What these families are going through is every parent’s worst nightmare”. Their lawyers say the families meet the requirements, but what keeps them apart is a bureaucratic catch-22.
They cannot obtain visas without providing biometrics. But Gaza’s visa application centre, where families would register physical characteristics such as fingerprints, has been closed since October 2023, so they cannot leave Gaza. More flexible biometric requirements are given for those who need to be medically evacuated from Gaza, while the government has helped scholarship students leave Gaza and complete biometric checks in Jordan.
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