Last week, as reported by the Guardian, we had a significant win in court.

We represent two families who have been separated, the fathers have protection status in the UK while the mothers and children are trapped in Gaza, unable to leave. They meet all the requirements for a family visa, but cannot currrently access consular support to leave Gaza without a visa. In Gaza they also cannot enrol their biometrics (undergoing security checks, like fingerprints), in order to be granted that visa. The Home Office has a policy which allows the biometric requirement to be waived in circumstances like this. The Home Office has so far refused to waive this requirement, leaving these families stranded.

The Upper Tribunal found that the way the Home Office is applying this policy to our families, is unlawful. The Home Office should allow the mothers and children we represent to leave Gaza and reunite with their loved ones.

This decision should have been the end of a long battle for the families we represent, who have endured and continue to face daily trauma. But the Home Office has said that it plans to appeal the judge’s decision. If it does, the families will have to wait many more months separated, with their lives under threat every day.

The Home Office is defending its decisions by saying that these vulnerable mothers and young children need to undergo security checks (through biometrics) before a visa is issued, because they may pose a risk to the UK. But the Home Office have already conducted biographical security checks on the families and have not identified any individualised security risk. These are young mothers who have spent their adult lives raising children – in the most horrendous of circumstances.

A change of direction?

Government ministers have signalled a welcome change in direction on Palestine over the last few weeks. The Prime Minister Andy Burnham said “the suffering of the Palestinian people is a scar on the conscience of the world,” and acknowledged that innocent people and children are still being killed. The Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said “we have reset our approach”. And Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the re-opening of the resettlement scheme, allowing small numbers of Palestinian refugees who are based in Jordan and Lebanon to come to the UK.

But on the same day as the resettlement scheme reopening was announced, the Home Secretary instructed senior lawyers to appeal the judgment on our case. This entrenched her policy position blocking the most vulnerable families who are still stuck in Gaza, who are eligible to join their loved ones in the UK, from doing so. It is entirely inconsistent with the government’s public messaging to be pouring public money into these lengthy legal battles to block families. The Home Secretary’s position is also inconsistent with that of the Foreign Office who have made clear they are willing to help facilitate reunion given the exceptional circumstances these families face.

What the families are facing

It is difficult to put into words the trauma the families we represent have faced and continue to endure. Many families in this position have suffered multiple traumatic bereavements over the course of the conflict. They have been unable to grieve together. The children are all traumatised. They have gone to bed every night to the sound of bombs, suffering from nightmares, with rats and mice crawling around their tent. The mothers are completely exhausted and without hope. They want what all mothers want for their children - to eat fruit and vegetables, to go to school. Instead, they go without food to give more to their children, who are malnourished and too small for their age, risking stampedes and sniper attacks at aid drops. Their only option is to give their children dirty water, watch them get sick, take them to the clinic where there is no medicine, to be told they should keep their children hydrated, with more dirty water. The mothers stay up at night, holding onto their children who cannot sleep without their touch, watching for rats, or people trying to enter their tent. The fathers, in the UK, are completely broken by witnessing, helplessly, the harm their families are exposed to each and every day and the thought that they may never hold their children again.

The families we represent in this case are two of a number of families in Gaza, each with their own stories of suffering. The number of families who have this kind of link to the UK and meet the requirements for a family visa are limited and represent 250-300 individuals, the vast majority of whom are children.

Another family we represent tragically lost their youngest child during the conflict. As an infant he struggled to breathe due to the bombings and was in hospital on a ventilator during the first months of the war when the hospital was taken over by Israeli soldiers, the doctors forced out and electricity cut off. Their baby’s body was never recovered but is presumed dead. The family have experienced deaths of many other family members, including a young nephew who died in similar circumstances. The mother and two remaining young children applied to join their husband and father in the UK, a refugee who fled Hamas before the Gaza war, who is terrified of losing another child in the conflict. While facing this grief, this family is still locked in a legal battle, with a second hearing coming up after the Home Office refused to waive the biometric requirement for a second time.

One of the two families who won their case in the Upper Tribunal has been displaced once again in the last two days due to their makeshift home being bombarded by shrapnel. We know of at least two Gazans who have died while awaiting the outcome of these challenges. The families cannot wait any longer.

What you can do

The Home Secretary still has the power to do the right thing and grant visas to these families. We are asking the Home Office to apply its own policy lawfully to allow the families in Gaza who meet the family visa rules to leave Gaza and reunite in the UK. We think MPs need to be aware that the Home Office’s decisions are at odds with the government’s wider messaging and commitment to support Palestinian people from Gaza. You can write to your MP to make them aware of this case and ask them to raise it with Ministers and make their “reset” a reality.

More detail: legal explainer

By Solicitor Decla Palmer

These families meet all the rules for the family visa route but they are being prevented from doing so by the Home Office biometric rules because there is nowhere in Gaza to provide biometrics and they are not allowed to exit Gaza without confirmation of entry clearance. The families made a request under the Unsafe Journeys Policy to waive the requirement to provide biometrics before a visa was issued. The Home Office rejected this request, as they have done with other families in the same position.

The Upper Tribunal has determined that the Home Office’s decision to refuse these families under the Unsafe Journey Policy was unlawful and not compliant with their right to a family life. Even with this decision, the Home Office is still able to conduct the same robust security checks that it undertakes with students and their families under the Gaza Scholarship Scheme. The Home Office has not identified any individualised security risk for these families – young mothers who have spent their adult years child bearing and looking after children and children who are all under seven whose fathers have protection status in the UK. To leave Gaza, they will also have to undergo Israeli Security Checks, near certain to identify anyone associated with Hamas.

Unfortunately, the Home Office instructed its lawyers to apply for permission to appeal the decision. It even took the highly unusual step of seeking to stay the order of the court – in other words, seeking an order that it does not have to comply with the court’s ruling until any further appeal is concluded. This would mean many more months of waiting before the families get a decision that complies with their right to a family life.

The Home Office has indicated in its application for permission to appeal that it intends to renew its application to appeal and its application to stay the Upper Tribunal order to the Court of Appeal. The families do not have time to wait. The Yellow Line encroaches ever inwards with children in Gaza being deliberately targeted by Israeli Forces. These separated families are suffering harm each and every day.