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LONDON: British officials are working to get critically sick and injured children out of Gaza so they can receive specialist treatment in UK hospitals, the British foreign secretary said Monday, adding that the first patients will arrive in coming weeks.
David Lammy said he was “outraged” by Israel not allowing enough aid to enter Gaza as he announced 15 million pounds ($20 million) more for medical assistance for Gaza and the region.
“This is not a natural disaster, it’s a manmade famine in the 21st century,” he said. “I’m outraged by the Israeli government’s refusal to allow in sufficient aid.”
“We all know there is only one way out — an immediate ceasefire,” Lammy added.
He told lawmakers that British officials are also supporting students from Gaza who have been granted scholarships at UK universities so that they can start their studies in the fall.
Lammy said a “massive humanitarian response” was needed to prevent more Palestinians from dying and starving after the world’s leading authority on food crises said in late August that the Gaza Strip’s largest city is in the grips of famine.
He did not give specifics about the number of sick children or scholars that Britain is accepting from Gaza. But Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament on Monday that officials are expediting visas for those Palestinians, as well as their accompanying family members.
British media have reported that officials are facilitating the evacuation of nine students in Gaza who were awarded Chevening scholarships, funded by Britain’s Foreign Office, but that dozens of other Palestinian students who have offers to study in the UK were still in limbo.
Officials have said they will not give specifics on the evacuation process because the situation was sensitive and complex.
Other European nations including Italy have also evacuated students and sick children from Gaza.
The UK funds field hospital operations in Gaza through a charity and works with the World Health Organization in Egypt to help treat some of the 8,000 people from Gaza who have been medically evacuated there.

BEIRUT: Lebanon and Syria will form two committees to decide the fate of the nearly 2,000 Syrian prisoners held in Lebanese jails, locate Lebanese nationals missing in Syria for years and settle the shared unmarked border, judicial and security officials said.
Monday’s announcement came as a Syrian delegation, which included two former Cabinet ministers and the head of Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons, visited Beirut, a first since insurgent groups overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in early December.
Syria’s new administration, under interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, wants to “open a new page” with Lebanon and pave the way for a visit by the Syrian ministers of foreign affairs and justice, though a date is yet to be set, a Lebanese judicial and two security officials told The Associated Press.
The future visit could be a possible breakthrough between the two countries that have had tense relations for decades.
The current Syrian leadership resents Lebanon’s Iran-allied Hezbollah group for taking part in the country’s conflict, fighting alongside Assad’s forces, while many Lebanese still grudge Syria’s 29-year domination of its smaller neighbor, where it had a military presence for three decades until 2005.
Talks on Monday with Lebanon’s Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri included Syrians held in Lebanese jails, of which about 800 have been detained for security reasons, such as attacks and shootings, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Many Syrians held in Lebanon are in jail without trial.
They also said the two sides discussed Lebanese citizens missing in Syria and the two countries shared border, where smuggling is common, and the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon who escaped the uprising-turned-conflict in their home country over 14 years ago.
The Syrian side wanted to review bilateral agreements that were in place during the Assad family’s 54-year dynasty, but Lebanon suggested forming new agreements to deal with pending issues between the two nations, the Lebanese officials said.
Since the fall of Assad, two Lebanese prime ministers have visited Syria. Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Al-Sharaa also held talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Egypt in March.
The two neighbors had only agreed to open embassies in 2008, marking Syria’s first official recognition of Lebanon as an autonomous state since it gained independence from France in 1943.