The first group of seriously ill children from Gaza are due to arrive in the UK this week to be treated by the NHS.
It is understood the youngsters are currently being cared for by medics in a neighbouring country before being flown to the UK for specialist treatment.
Ministers have been working with international partners to fast-track medical evacuations for the most critical cases from the war-torn enclave.
Hospitals in Gaza have been left in ruins, with long-term care for children all but impossible.
The UN charity Unicef estimates more than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since October 7, 2023.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the first group of children have left Gaza and is on their way to the UK.
Ms Cooper also said that the government is working to evacuate students with places to stay at British universities.
‘It’s a lot of diplomatic work in order to help them actually leave Gaza and then also travel through other countries in order to be able to get to the UK.
It is understood the youngsters are currently being cared for by medics in a neighbouring country before being flown to the UK for specialist treatment
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the first group of children have left Gaza and is on their way to the UK
‘But that work is underway and I’m determined to make sure that we can do our bit to help those injured families and also to help students get into their courses this autumn.’
A small number of children have been brought to the UK privately by the charity Project Pure Hope, set up by volunteer medical professionals, but the Israeli Government must give the green light for evacuations.
This is the first time children will be brought to Britain for treatment on the NHS.
Each child would be accompanied by family members if necessary, with biometric data collected in a third country.
It is not known how many children are in the first group, although previous reports have suggested it could be between 30 and 50.
Last month, the Government said it would set up a scheme to bring children to the UK for free medical care.
The Foreign Office told The Mirror it is working with the World Health Organisation to get injured children to the UK in the coming days.
Each child would be accompanied by family members if necessary, with biometric data collected in a third country
Ministers have been working with international partners to fast-track medical evacuations for the most critical cases from the war-torn enclave
It comes as frontline medics warned of the desperate conditions inside Gaza’s collapsing health system.
A British nurse working at a UK-backed field hospital described shortages of vital drugs and equipment, with much of the aid still stuck at the border.
Mandy Blackman, who leads nursing at UK-Med’s Al Mawasi hospital in southern Gaza, told the Daily Mail that food scarcity is now so severe patients are surviving on just one meal a day, only to be discharged back into dangerous and unstable conditions.
Ms Blackman, usually based at Kettering General Hospital in Northamptonshire, said: ‘I have been a nurse for 25 years and I have seen more mass casualty here than I have seen in a lifetime in the UK.’
The Mail approached the Foreign Office for comment.
