Surge in small boat migrants fleeing Gaza war for Britain

Charles Hymas

14 October 2025 at 7:30 am

The conflict in Gaza has fuelled a near-tenfold increase in Palestinians making illegal Channel crossings to the UK, which could now be reversed by Donald Trump's peace deal.

Without any safe legal routes from Gaza to Britain, even to join family, Palestinians fleeing the Israel-Hamas conflict have opted for the perilous small boat journey.

While 38 crossed in the year to June 2024, in the subsequent 12 months there were 324.

Over the same period, the number of Palestinians claiming asylum in the UK more than doubled, from 327 in the year ending June 2024, to 841 in the year to June 2025.

The ceasefire negotiated by the US president means the desire to come to Britain might abate and asylum guidance might be rewritten to limit Palestinians' rights to claim asylum.

Although the numbers seeking refuge in the UK are relatively small, sustained peace in the region would ease the immigration pressures on Sir Keir Starmer's Government, just as the fall of the Assad regime stemmed the flow of migrants from Syria.

The current Home Office guidance for Gaza allows Palestinians to claim asylum under article three of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

The guidance states: "The general humanitarian situation in Gaza is so severe that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of serious harm because conditions amount to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.

"Internal relocation is unlikely to be reasonable due to the overall shortfall of the arrival and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, and the unpredictable and fast-moving nature of the conflict."

As a result, Palestinians have had one of the highest success rates for asylum requests, with 79.1 per cent of applications granted.

That places them eighth in the list of nationals ranked by proportion approved. It is more than Libya (76.7 per cent) but behind Yemen (95 per cent), Sudan (93.7 per cent) and South Sudan (85.5 per cent).

The peace deal could also end a legal wrangle, first revealed by The Telegraph, in which a family from Gaza won an immigration tribunal appeal to come to Britain under the Government's scheme for Ukrainian refugees.

The Government has been fighting the judgment and is due to go back to court in January in its efforts to overturn the ruling, fearing it could set a precedent and open up other schemes to claims from unconnected asylum seekers.

The family of six, including two children under 10, were granted entry to the UK by an immigration court in January. They had argued their situation in war-torn Gaza was so dangerous and their claim was so "exceptional" that they should be allowed into the UK under the Ukrainian refugee scheme.

Their case sparked a rare clash between Sir Keir and Baroness Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, after the Prime Minister said the court's decision to grant them the right to come to the UK was wrong. Lady Carr criticised Sir Keir's comments as "unacceptable" and a threat to the independence of the judiciary.

In July, it emerged the Foreign Office had refused to provide the family with the UK consular support they needed to leave Gaza and get to a neighbouring country to obtain visas from a UK application centre to come to Britain.

It sparked a High Court rebuke for the Government by Mr Justice Chamberlain who backed the family's claim, saying the Foreign Office's decision in June to refuse consular assistance should be reconsidered as it was "flawed" and "irrational".

The Government has also been criticised for restricting Palestinians' access to family visas for the UK.

Any Palestinian seeking a family reunion has to secure a visa, which can only be done by providing their biometric data including fingerprints and photographs in person at a visa application centre (VAC).

There is, however, no VAC in Gaza and access to those in Israel and Egypt has been nearly impossible due to the Israeli blockade on the Strip.

The Home Office can consider applications without biometric enrolment but such requests are routinely refused. The number of visas granted to Palestinians has fallen to 605, its lowest for four years.

This may be why Palestinians have sought to come to the UK via the Channel, a route that may no longer be necessary if the peace negotiated by Mr Trump holds.