Gaza rebuild academic in legal struggle to be reunited with his wife and two children

Bassem Abudagga, aged 43, last saw his wife Mariam and their children aged 11 and seven, on a trip home to Gaza in September 2023, a month before the October 7 attacks.

Since then Bassem's family have been trapped in Gaza, living in widely condemned conditions in one of many tent camps set up for people displaced by the Palestine-Israel war.

Bassem, a Palestinian from Gaza, is working on a doctorate proposing routes to restore Gaza as a place where citizens can live and work. His studies at the University of York St John since 2022 are funded by the British Council under the highly respected HESPAL scheme.

As such, legal experts say Bassem's wife and children qualify to leave Gaza and travel safely to join him in the UK.

Their situation matches that of Palestinian scholars for whom the Home Office and Foreign Office put special arrangements in place for immediate and safe transfer to the UK.

Yet, Bassem's legal struggle to be reunited with his family has been long and fraught, with no end in sight despite the efforts of specialist human rights lawyers and his MP Rebecca Long-Bailey.

Despite the urgency of the family’s circumstances and the impact on Bassem’s children, this week the Home Office said a crucial decision as part of the process for permission to be evacuated from Gaza to Jordan would not be possible for at least another six weeks, with a separate decision to allow them to travel to the UK from Jordan not due until December.

Lawyers at Leigh Day took up Bassem's case at the start of 2026

In September 2025, the Home Office had refused to grant visas in principle to allow Mariam and the children permission to join Bassem in the UK. 

After Bassem's legal team applied to have the refusal judicially reviewed by the High Court, the Home Office agreed to grant the visas in principle, and in March gave Mariam and the children provisional entry clearance to the UK as student dependants. 

According to the rules, the decision meant that the three would have to attend a Visa Application Centre so that their biometrics could be taken before a visa could be issued. As there is no longer a centre in Gaza, lawyers applied to the Home Office to defer biometrics. 

However, in April Bassem's family were shocked to receive a refusal from the Home Office of a deferral of the biometric data requirement.

By June the Foreign Office had agreed to provide the necessary evacuation assistance. The Foreign Office have asked the Home Office to consider Onward Travel Assurances (OTA) to enable the family to travel to the UK though Jordan.

Without the biometric deferral or alternatively OTA, it would be impossible for the family to leave Gaza. Faced with another threat of judicial review, the Home Office then agreed to reconsider its refusal to grant a biometrics deferral.

Last month, July, the Home Office yet again refused the deferral and lawyers again threatened to apply to have the decision judicially reviewed by the High Court.

In the meantime, Bassem's MP Rebecca Long Bailey wrote directly to the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary to make his case, and to again point out that it matched that of the Scholars who had been given free passage to the UK back in the Autumn of 2025 and further cases in 2026. 

Ms Long Bailey is also one of 85 MPs who have written a cross party letter to the Home Secretary urging her to stop blocking evacuation of vulnerable families in Gaza who have immediate family members in the UK.

In Bassem’s case, now Home Office lawyers have written to Leigh Day to say that a decision on the OTA will not be made until 19 December. Again Leigh Day has threatened to apply to the High Court to have this delay judicially reviewed. 

This week the Home Office withdrew its second deferral refusal decision, but said another decision could not be made until the end of September. Lawyers see this as a delaying tactic and have demanded an immediate decision.

Bassem Abudagga said:

“My family are not numbers in a political debate about Gaza. They are my wife and my two children, but while I'm here in safety in Salford, they are living in constant danger and unbearable conditions in mice infested tents.

“The Home Office knows who they are, they have positive predetermination decisions and the FCDO has agreed to assist them, yet they remain trapped while decisions are repeatedly delayed.

“The last time I saw my children, they were just four and eight years old. I worry about them day and night.

“Every additional week is another week in which their lives are at risk. I cannot understand how the Government can speak about protecting civilians in Gaza while allowing bureaucracy and delay to keep my own family there when a route to bring them to safety is already within its hands.”

Bassem's solicitor, Leigh Day human rights team lawyer Sarah Crowe said:

"Bassem’s family meet the Immigration Rules to join him as student dependants and if they were in any other country, they would have made their own way to a Visa Application Centre, provided their biometrics and joined Bassem in the UK by now, since they have visas in principle. It is only because of the border closures in Gaza and the Home Office’s refusal to exercise biometric discretion that they remain stuck there.

"The Home Office has rightfully made special biometric arrangements for Gaza scholarship students through a bespoke scheme, the Gaza Process, yet so far has refused to exercise discretion to do the same in this case.

"Reasons given by the Home Office for helping these Scholars and their families include the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the foreign policy objective of helping Gaza’s brightest students who will return to help rebuild Gaza. We say those same considerations apply in Bassem’s family’s case – his PhD is dedicated to the reconstruction of Gaza.

"The Home Office says security risks are reduced for the Scholars because the universities do due diligence checks. The same checks have been done in Bassem’s case and his university and scholarship organisation is fully supportive. As Bassem is a British Council funded HESPAL scholar, there is no doubt about his identity or his family’s. 

"The Home Office has admitted it is in the children’s best interests to “relocate from Gaza” yet inexplicably continues to downplay the severity of the family’s circumstances and impact of their separation."