A group of between 30 and 50 critically ill and injured Palestinian children will be evacuated from Gaza to the UK for medical treatment in the coming weeks, the BBC understands.
They would be the first children brought to the UK for treatment as part of a government operation being coordinated by the Foreign Office, Home Office and Department of Health.
The children will be selected by the World Health Organization and will travel with family members via a third country, where biometric data will be collected.
It comes after some MPs wrote a letter to the government urging them to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK “without delay”.
In a letter last week, a cross-party group of 96 MPs warned that children were at risk of imminent death due to the “decimation” of the healthcare system in Gaza and any barriers to evacuation should be immediately lifted.
Some Gazan children have already been brought privately to the UK for medical treatment through an initiative by the organisation Project Pure Hope (PPH), but the government has so far not evacuated any through its own scheme during the conflict.
Earlier in August, the government said that plans to bring more children to the UK for medical treatment were being carried out “at pace”.
It is unclear which third country the children will transit through on their way to the UK, exactly how many children will be involved or whether further groups will follow.
Given the challenge of returning children to Gaza, it is understood some may enter the asylum system after completing treatment.
More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since the war in Gaza begun in October 2023, according to the UN charity Unicef.
Since the start of the war, the UK has provided funds so that injured Gazans can be treated by hospitals in the region and has also been working with Jordan to airdrop aid into the territory.
Children brought to the UK under the government scheme will be treated on the NHS. At the beginning of August, the government said that a cross-party taskforce was working to establish a plan to “evacuate children from Gaza who require urgent medical care… as quickly as possible”.
The Home Office previously said biometric checks would be carried out before children and carers before they travel.
Severely ill Palestinians have been evacuated from Gaza to other countries since the start of the war, including more than 180 adults and children to Italy.
The UN has warned of widespread malnutrition in Gaza, with experts backed by the organisation warning in a report last month that the “worst-case scenario” of famine is playing out in Gaza.
Israel has insisted there are no restrictions on aid deliveries into Gaza, and has accused the UN and other aid agencies of failing to deliver it.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli military operation began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
