Speaking from Gaza, Manar Al Houbi told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show she was informed just days before her evacuation from Gaza that her family would not be allowed to come with her – despite the Labour Government allowing other families to enter the UK.
It comes as the UK Government is set to officially recognise the state of Palestine on Sunday, with First Minister John Swinney urging Labour to take further actions to provide support to Palestinians.
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Addressing Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy – who was foreign secretary until the dramatic cabinet reshuffle which took place earlier this month – Laura Kuenssberg said: “A small group of students, of scholars, are being allowed to come from Gaza to the UK to carry on with their studies.
“Some of them actually arrived this week, but we’ve found out that they are not allowed theoretically to bring their children with them.
“When Yvette Cooper was in charge of the Home Office, she did grant permission for one family to bring their two-year-old with them, but others now are being told they can’t.”
Kuenssberg then introduced Al Houbi, who has a place for a PhD at Glasgow University.
Al Houbi said she has not been allowed to bring her children – who are three, five and 10 years old – with her to the UK.
In a video sent from Gaza, Al Houbi introduced her family and said: “I learned this very, very late after completing all the visa steps and pay the visa cost completely for me and my husband and three children.
“I was told just only days before our evacuation when I received an email from the FCDO [Foreign Office].
“I trust that the UK Government will take the right decision. Please, don’t let me choose between my family and my education, because it’s impossible for me to be separated from them.”
Kuenssberg then asked Lammy how the UK Government can “in all conscience” not allow family members to come with students from Gaza to the UK.
The Deputy Prime Minister said: “Well look, for months, and since the Prime Minister announced this, we have been seeking to bringing scholars and other students to the UK, to bring children in medical distress to the UK for treatment.
“It’s important to understand that we are actually dependent on Israeli permissions to bring those people out, and that has not been easy to get.
“I’m very pleased that 34, I understand, have come in the last few days. Of course, it’s subject to our immigration rules and that will be on a case-by-case basis.”
When asked if the Labour Government would reconsider its policy and allow the families of students to also enter the UK, Lammy said: “I don’t want to cut across the decisions that the new Foreign Secretary, and obviously the Home Secretary, are making.
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“I know that the intent is to bring people to be able to study and not to cause them further pain or hardship.”
Kuenssberg then said: “So the intent may well be that we could see a change, I think there’s a little hint there that you might hope for.”
Also on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, Husam Zomlot, the senior Palestinian diplomat in the UK, said recognition would correct a colonial-era wrong dating back to the Balfour Declaration supporting the creation of a Jewish state in 1917.
The Palestinian head of mission told the BBC: “The issue today is ending the denial of our existence that started 108 years ago, in 1917.
“And I think today, the British people should celebrate a day when history is being corrected, when wrongs are being righted, when recognition of the wrongs of the past are beginning to be corrected, and when taking responsibility of that colonial era, because that era has led us directly to the genocide in Gaza today, and that era has led to the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian people during the Nakba and during the British mandate.”
Nakba is the term used to describe the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 after the end of the British Mandate.
Zomlot said “the hands of British history” were on the whole conflict.
He added that recognition was a “foundational step” towards establishing a sovereign state of Palestine “and anybody who argues against that is somebody who wants to see us moving backward rather than forward”.
Elsewhere on the Sunday morning media round, Lammy told Sky News that a Palestinian state would not emerge “overnight” if the UK recognises one later on Sunday, adding that it is to keep the prospect of a two-state solution “alive”.
Speaking on the broadcaster’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips show, he said: “It’s not to say as night follows day, you recognise one day and a Palestinian state appears the next.”
