First group of critically ill children from Gaza arrive in UK for urgent NHS treatment

Ten children have arrived in the UK.

This first group of young patients were evacuated from Gaza where the healthcare system has been destroyed.

The children have arrived in the UK alongside their families and will be treated by the NHS, reports BBC News.

The WHO say they have supported the evacuation of 10 'critical' children from Gaza to the UK.

The Mirror reports that Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the medical aid scheme in the summer as he warned that 'most hospitals in Gaza are no longer functioning at all'.

He said: "We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance – bringing more Palestinian children to the UK for specialist medical treatment."

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Wednesday: "Children are too often the innocent victims of war. In Gaza, where the healthcare system has been decimated and hospitals are no longer functioning, there are severely ill children unable to get the medical care they need to survive."

This news comes just one day after a commission established by the United Nations said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The report said: "It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza."

Sky News report that the UN body has also said Israel's actions meet the criteria set for defining a genocide.

This marks the first time that the allegation has been made publicly by a UN body.

The commission, or more specifically the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has been studying the conduct of Israel since the Hamas attack on October 7 2023.

They've come to the conclusion that Israel have committed four of the five acts laid out in the Genocide Convention.

They say Israel have been killing Palestinians or forcing Palestinians to live in such inhumane conditions that lead to death.

They say Israel has caused serious bodily or mental harm including torture, displacement, and sexual crimes.

They say Israel has deliberately imposed inhumane conditions on Palestinians.

And they Israel have imposed measures intended to prevent births.

Sky News report that this final claim is due to an attack on an IVF clinic which the UN commission claims destroyed around 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples.

The report concludes: "Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide."

Around 65,000 people are believed to have died since October 2023.

The commission says that a majority of these are children, women, and elderly people.