Palestinian hoping to help family reach UK calls for Ukraine-style visa scheme

A Palestinian student in Scotland who has spent a year trying to help his family escape Gaza has urged the UK Government to launch an initiative similar to the Ukraine Family Scheme.

Mahmoud Almassri, 31, left his hometown of Beit Hanoun, a city on the north-east edge of the Gaza Strip, in 2017 to study a Masters degree in Turkey before relocating to Edinburgh in 2021 to study physics at Heriot-Watt University in the Scottish capital.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7 last year, Mr Almassri, who has a biometric residence permit to study in the UK, has been trying to bring his 58-year-old father, 53-year-old mother, his four brothers and three sisters to the UK to seek refuge.

The PhD student said his family in Gaza were displaced five times in the space of two weeks in August and currently stay in a tent next to a school in Al Qarara, Khan Yunis, southern Gaza.

“They keep hearing from time to time about talks of a ceasefire, but when they started seeing news like that five months ago they were optimistic and believed that,” he told the PA news agency.

“(But now) they become certain that after they hear about a ceasefire that a massacre will appear or something bad will happen.”

He added his family must “live with this” but “don’t really know how to cope” and believes violence between Israel and Hamas “is not getting better”.

Mr Almassri contacted his then local MP for Edinburgh South West, Joanna Cherry, in January calling for a Ukraine-style visa for Palestinians.

“Even if you have a residence permit in the UK, or whatever, you cannot leave Gaza – you are basically in prison,” he said.

“I believe there should be a scheme because it only makes sense if the so-called free world really cares about the situation like a humanitarian crisis.”

Advice from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) outlined on the UK Government website that there are “currently no exit routes available for foreign nationals to depart Gaza as a result of the military operations” but has contacted authorities in Israel, Egypt and Jordan about alternative paths.

Fleeing Ukrainians were offered visas which granted three years leave in the UK under programmes such as Homes for Ukraine, the Ukraine Extension Scheme and the Ukraine Family Scheme.

The Ukraine Family Scheme visa, which closed on February 19 2024, was an application allowing Ukrainian nationals to join family members or extend their stay in the UK, but there is no equivalent for Palestinians.

“(The government) have done it before for certain people, like the Ukrainian crisis, they can do it again for crises with the same severity, like what’s happening in Gaza – I think it’s just a matter of whether they want or they do not want to do,” Mr Almassri said.

“It is about helping people to escape death. It is clear that there is almost no hope in the near future and innocent people are being killed in the thousands.”

His sister, Abeer, 28, was offered a place at the University of St Andrews in Scotland to study a degree in health data science, but could not come to the UK after Israeli military took control of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine.

He said some of his family members are “still clinging to the hope of returning back to their hometown” and said it is not easy for his younger brothers, aged 15 and 16, and his parents to “accept the idea of leaving Gaza”.

“I’m just trying to do whatever I can here because I have access to a lot of things here that they do not have access to,” he said.

“I’m trying to basically help them or help whoever can survive, to survive.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are keeping all existing pathways under review in response to events in Gaza.

“Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK must do so via the existing range of routes available.”

PA has contacted Joanna Cherry for comment.