Judge Fiona Lindsley, sitting in the upper tribunal, the immigration court, has ruled that the Home Office acted unlawfully when it blocked two mothers and their young children in Gaza from joining their families in the UK. The decision carries consequences for hundreds of others caught in the same position.
Both families are young mothers with five children between them, all aged seven or under, hoping to reunite with husbands granted refugee status in the UK. Lindsley quashed the decisions in the two cases and found the home secretary had applied government policy unlawfully. In her judgment, she described the families as living in vulnerable structures in a war zone, malnourished, unwell and struggling psychologically, with anxiety shared by their husbands and fathers in the UK that they would not survive much longer if they remained in Gaza.
“The best interests of these children should be the primary consideration, and it cannot be in their best interests to be afraid, undernourished and suffering from diseases of poverty and insanitary conditions without their fathers and no end in sight to that separation,” she said.
The cases turn on a practical bottleneck with wide reach. Families abroad whose applications to reunite with loved ones in the UK have been approved normally undergo biometric checks, including fingerprinting and facial images, at a visa application centre. But the centre in Gaza has been closed since October 2023, and it is difficult to get out of the territory. The government has an unsafe journeys policy offering some flexibility in such situations. Yet it has taken a stricter approach to families in Gaza, often mothers with very young children, seeking to join husbands and fathers granted refugee status in the UK.
An estimated 250 to 300 people in Gaza who want to reunite with immediate family members granted refugee status in the UK are similarly stranded. The Home Office maintains that biometrics should be obtained before families travel. The Foreign Office has said it is willing to evacuate some of these families from Gaza so they can provide biometrics in Jordan. The Guardian has reported the ruling and the wider context in detail at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/04/court-quashes-block-on-mothers-and-children-in-gaza-joining-families-in-uk.
Meanwhile, Decla Palmer, a solicitor at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit who represents the families, said the Home Office was doing everything possible to delay and defend its unlawful decisions, taking a policy position that blocks people in Gaza who are eligible to come to the UK from being able to do so.
“These families are completely broken, it is difficult to put into words the trauma they have faced and continue to endure. The mothers and children, trapped in Gaza, are suffering each and every day. The fathers, in the UK, are facing the prospect that they may never hold their children again. The Home Office is actively keeping these families apart, leaving them stranded in Gaza in grave danger,” she said.
The Home Office says it is looking to appeal. A spokesperson said biometrics, including fingerprints and facial images, are a core part of the UK’s immigration system, and that enrolment at an overseas visa application centre is a standard requirement when making a visa application. The enrolment, the spokesperson said, enables comprehensive checks against UK and international immigration and criminal records to identify individuals who may pose a threat to national security, public safety or immigration controls, or who are likely to breach UK laws if admitted.
The ruling lands at a moment of broader uncertainty for family reunion. On Monday, the Home Office announced refugee resettlement routes, including for Palestinian refugees and women from Afghanistan, but that scheme processes only a few hundred applications each year. It is not known when the much larger refugee family reunion scheme will restart, after it was suspended in September 2025. The Refugee Council estimates that approximately 20,000 people have been denied family reunion since then. The government initially indicated that new refugee family reunion rules would be introduced in the spring of 2025, but the scheme remains suspended, and Home Office sources have indicated that no further details will be announced about this safe and legal route for refugees to reach the UK until 2027. Whether the tribunal’s ruling shifts that timetable, or the Home Office’s approach to the families stranded in Gaza, remains to be seen.