26 January 2026
As if enduring two years of Israel’s genocidal military assault was not punishment enough, Gaza students who persisted in their studies despite near-impossible conditions and won scholarships to British universities are unable to take them up because of obstacles the UK government seems unwilling to remove. A spokesperson for the government claims it is doing “everything in its power to assist eligible students and their eligible dependants to exit Gaza, and take up their places in the UK”, according to a report in The Times Higher Education Supplement on 23 January. Under pressure from MPs and campaigners, the Home Office last autumn allowed 40 Gazan students to come to Britain despite the fact that the continuing military assault made it impossible for them to obtain the bibliometric information normally required of Palestinian students. The British authorities also persuaded the Israelis to allow some, though not all, of the students to leave. But evidently the Home Office is again setting impossible conditions for Gaza student applicants and allowing the Israelis to stop them from leaving. According to Nora Parr, a research fellow at Birmingham University and volunteer with the Gaza Scholarship Initiative, the so-called ceasefire declared in October has “hampered” student progress “because it gives the false sense that the urgency for student support is over”, although the visa centres remain closed and the Israelis won’t let students leave Gaza. One might well ask how the Home Office or the UK government itself could be so misinformed of the realities in Gaza as to imagine that the ceasefire has altered anything for students stuck in Gaza. And why, if British officials were serious about helping them, don’t they warn the Israelis that until they permit Gaza students freely to leave, Britain will not permit Israeli students to come to the UK to study or – as is already the case for Palestinians – threaten to introduce visas for all Israeli visitors? Sadly, simply to ask the question is to answer it, for the government’s pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian bias has been clearly on display since it took office in July 2024.
