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London: A Palestinian family fleeing Gaza have been granted the right to live in Britain through a scheme for Ukrainian refugees.

The family of six refugees were granted anonymity and permitted to join their brother in the UK following the ruling.

It is believed to be the first time refugees from outside Ukraine have used the Ukraine Family Scheme to receive residency rights.

An original rejection of the family’s claim by the Home Office breached their human rights, an immigration judge, Hugo Norton-Taylor, ruled.

More than 70,000 visas were granted to Ukrainians and their family members through the scheme, which launched in March 2022 and closed in February last year.

The Palestinian family applied through the scheme in January 2024, a month before it closed, arguing that their situation was “compelling” enough to justify an exception to the rules.

The mother, father and four children aged 7, 8, 17 and 19 were living in a Gaza refugee camp.

They faced “daily threats to their lives from Israeli military attacks” after an airstrike destroyed their home, the judge said. The family’s sponsor arrived in Britain in 2007 and is now a citizen.

Documents show that Norton-Taylor found that they were living in a “dire situation.” The family were exposed to a humanitarian crisis resulting from “the Israeli government’s indiscriminate attempts to eliminate Hamas.”

An initial rejection of their claim by a Home Office tribunal argued that instituting a resettlement scheme for Palestinians was not the body’s responsibility.

But Norton-Taylor found that the rejection interfered with their right to a family life. He highlighted the “incredibly dangerous” situation for Palestinians in Gaza and warned of the family’s “high risk of death.”

A Home Office spokesperson said the department had contested the claim “rigorously,” adding: “The latter court ruled against us on the narrow facts of this specific case.

“Nevertheless, we are clear that there is no resettlement route from Gaza, and we will continue to contest any future claims that do not meet our rules.”

WASHINGTON: Two American astronauts who have been trapped on the International Space Station since June could return to Earth earlier in March than expected, NASA said Tuesday.
Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS), but have been there for more than eight months after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft suffered propulsion problems.
The US space agency decided the Starliner would return home without its crew after carrying out weeks of intensive testing and announced in August that it was tasking Elon Musk’s SpaceX with bringing the crew home.
Musk, one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, committed to bringing them back to Earth “as soon as possible” at the end of January, with Republicans blaming Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden for the delay.
A SpaceX mission called Crew-9 saw two astronauts arrive at the ISS in September aboard a Dragon spacecraft, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.
But their return was postponed when NASA announced that Crew-10 who was due to relieve them would not be blasting off until the end of March at the earliest.
The mission is now scheduled to launch on March 12 “pending mission readiness,” NASA announced Tuesday, explaining that the change was agreed with SpaceX after adjustments were made to the original plan.
Instead of using a brand new Dragon spacecraft that requires extra processing time, the Crew-10 mission will now use a previously flown one called Endurance.
The astronauts will return to Earth following a handover period of several days, the agency added.
In January, Wilmore and Williams said their spirits were still high, adding that they had plenty of food and were enjoying their time on the space station.
While their protracted stay is notable, it has not yet surpassed Frank Rubio’s record-breaking 371 days aboard the ISS, which he completed in 2023 after the Russian spacecraft designated for his return developed a coolant leak.