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This from Maggie Nelmes, Ventnor. Ed
When Russia invaded Ukraine, our government set up a visa scheme to waive the conditions, fees and salary thresholds that normally apply to British citizens who wish to bring family members to the UK. They also waived the English language test for the refugees. They even set up a scheme for British citizens to offer accommodation to Ukrainian refugees who had no relationship to them, and made a financial contribution towards their board and lodging.
Different response for Palestinian refugees
Yet, when over 25 thousand Britons recently signed a parliamentary petition asking the government to waive the fees and conditions for Palestinian refugees trapped in Gaza to be reunited with family members in the UK, the Home Office simply said No.
Why so generous to Ukrainians yet so lacking in compassion for Palestinians? They are imprisoned in Gaza, a densely populated strip of land roughly the size of the Isle of Wight.
Our population is about 140 thousand, but theirs is over two million, though some 22 thousand of them have been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas.
Freezing, starving and vulnerable to disease
Only foreign nationals are allowed to leave this war zone, yet most of the population have had to abandon their homes and are constantly on the move to flee the fighting. Some are living in overcrowded houses, while others have nothing but tents for shelter from the cold. They are starving, vulnerable to disease epidemics, and many have seen loved ones killed or maimed.
Those Palestinians now trapped in Gaza have already been displaced when Israeli settlers grabbed their land. Many have been forced to move more than once. The Gaza strip was part of Egypt until Israel seized it in the 1967 war. Many of the people there now have been living in refugee camps for many decades, in poverty, with no work available and no hope for a better future.
Once a British colony
Palestine was a British colony until 1948, when Zionists claimed it as their ‘Promised Land’. Yet the UK has ever since absolved itself of all responsibility for the people it once ruled and then abandoned.
British nationals can only bring their Palestinian spouses, partners or children to the UK under the family visa route. Relatives such as grandparents, siblings or parents of adult children are not normally eligible.
Rising cost of visas
The Home Office charges £1,846 for each family member, and a further £1,560 healthcare surcharge for an adult and £1,175 for a child. British nationals must earn at least £18,600 to apply for a visa for a spouse or partner, or £24,800 for a visa for two children. But this is set to rise in the spring to £29,000. And partners or spouses must pass an English language test.
Some British-Palestinians, who cannot afford the government’s fees, are turning in desperation to fundraising.
Different rules for Palestinians
A group of 80 families wrote to Foreign Secretary, David Cameron in December asking if he would set up a similar scheme to the Ukrainian one for Palestinians.
In its response to the petition, the government said its “approach must be considered in the round, rather than on a crisis-by-crisis basis”.
It also rejected a petition, signed by more than 16,000 people, to create a bespoke immigration route for Palestinian children on the same grounds.
