300 children from Gaza to be brought to the UK for free specialist NHS care

[Fragmentedbrain]

According to the Sunday Times. That's nearly as many beds as there are in Great Ormond Street, where the average waiting time for paediatric surgery is 15 weeks (which is fairly typical nationwide).

Why is it mysteriously possible for government to deliver these showy, headline-grabbing measures (I know we already knew it could happen from COVID policy) but not to just make systems work well in an ordinary way?

The Israeli's are produce new injured Gazan children every day in their attempt to wipe them off the earth. Sadly us taking 300 would stop their being a need to help more next week.

That’s really tough to hear. 💐 for you.
They should manage both really. They could fund it in lots of ways - and mostly it’s not being paid for by us anyway.

That's probably why we have this current shit show,.

Firstly, they are helping and have been for a long time. In Islam you do not broadcast what you are doing to help others, it is considered unseemly and takes away from the good in the act of helping or charity. Secondly, yes there are great facilities, but (and I can only speak for Qatar as I live there), there are fewer specialist facilities such as would be required for children with horrific, complex injuries that require reconstruction. My husband had to fly home to the UK for a particular kind of orthopaedic procedure (paid privately before anyone says anything) because the expertise required is not available here. Qatar sent helicopters into Afghanistan minutes after the US withdrew to evacuate people at risk. They have STEM programs here to educate Afghan women refugees. They have been evacuating orphaned kids from Palestine since the beginning of the conflict. They just don’t shout about it and it doesn’t really feed the popular narrative for the western media to report it. There’s so much going on that people back in the UK just don’t know about or understand and it saddens me to see this kind of discussion on here. Having sat through a missile strike here at the end of June where my children asked me if they were going to die and I could not honestly answer, I got a tiny insight into the utter horror that some people are enduring and have been for a very long time. We were of course unharmed, but I still leap out of my skin every time a door slams. Imagine what they endure…do not grudge these children the help they need. Don’t be that person.

The UK takes a very small number of refugees compared to other countries. Germany took 294,415 last year we took 97,104 in 2034. Turkey has nearly 4 million refugees (more than any other country in the world) and Jordan 1.3 million most from Syria and other countries in the Middle East. The UK ranks lower considering how many refugees we accept relative to population with 4.98 per 10,000 people compared to Norway 31.21 per 10,000.

Yes they are taking 5000 (I think they have talked about it), the point is the rich ME countries can take them all. Don't you think if you were a sick child then it would be of great comfort to at least be cared for by people who speak the same language?

Qatar and Saudi have loads of capacity and neverending funds.

Actually, I think you may find that many of the UK domestic Islamist terrorists are second generation and come from comfortable homes and situations. The Manchester Arena, the London Bridge, and 7/7 attacks were wholly or significantly attributed to second generation migrants. It's not as easy to say that,
"Crushing people’s core personal freedoms and right to practice their religion is the quickest way to grow terrorism, you create a bunch of people with nothing to lose."
Many of these men had identity conflicts, were roped into ideological networks and had transnational connections.

I think it is unfair and naive to tell the people of this country, who are concerned about people who are directly exposed to a terrorist group on a daily basis for decades, that any fears they have are irrational and irrelevant. I think any apprehension of having Palestinians from Gaza here and wanting caution is entirely rational.

Look at what happened in Australia when they invited war-torn Sudanese refugees, these were the first black Africans of any significant number in Australia. They now have second and third generation Sudanese gangs rampaging with large machetes and causing lots of problems.

That's not true and is also incredibly callous to blame people for the actions of their government or the state of their country (whether good or bad). I don't have to go though many countries where it's not normal civilians fault that they have the government they have, it's often due to lots of history and also the actions of other governments. Not only in Palestine but across the world. It could have easily been you living in Sudan or Palestine or Afghanistan, you could have been born there and would have a very different life enduring civil war and famine and being internally displaced and having your whole life destroyed. They didn't choose that, just like you didn't choose to born in stable country.

Just discussed this with my very left wing 14yo and 16yo over lunch. Their words: "the problem is not even these 300 children and their families. The problem is that even more people will vote Reform after reading this"

You do realise israel also treats injured and sick Palestinian children and always have done?

@nearlylovemyusername which is why 16 yo shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Total Marxist indoctrination at schools - they need time in the creak world to undo that

I’m usually pretty disgusted with anyone who would consider racist, sexist, grifters like Reform. That they might do it because of this is even more horrific. I hope your children are unnecessarily cynical. I don’t really want to share a country with people who would vote reform because a few desperate children got help (not even at our expense).

At last a shift in UK policy despite massive pressure from the Friends of Israel. Well done Keir Starmer.

'Firstly, they are helping and have been for a long time. In Islam you do not broadcast what you are doing to help others, it is considered unseemly and takes away from the good in the act of helping or charity'

mofa.gov.qa/en/qatar/latest-articles/latest-news/details/2024/09/26/qatar-announces-extra--100-million-pledge-in-response-to-gaza-humanitarian-crisis

Eh? What’s Marxist about what they said?
And ‘indoctrination in schools’ just doesn’t happen. Teachers would start by indoctrinating them to listen and bring a pen if they had that power.
Pretty sure you have no idea what Marxism is.

Many people did learn, but that's because they took the time to learn.

Some people however actively dont want to learn. They think something and then believe it to be true. That is often enough for them. They can't be bothered to do even basic fact checks. Just look at the number of "why arent Arab countries taking them" posts on this thread.🙄

Those spouting ignorant nonsense about whats happening right now don't bother themselves with learning history.

The waiting list is for particular treatments. I am afraid I cannot protest against 300 probably starving children coming to the UK for treatment. I haven’t read the article but presumably they won’t all go to one particular hospital.

Germany rejected about 81% of their Asylum requests. The UK only reject about 53%, so I can understand why we took fewer.

Can you link those sources .. I have not been able to find the 5,000 being treated in Dubai, Saudi Qatar ….
why isn’t that headlining.

They both were in private schools until last year so no indoctrination, thank you, just very well trained in critical thinking.

The same as me they'd rather chop their hands than vote Reform.

But they are intelligent enough to understand what moves like this will lead to given situation in this country.

The source is the Times article linked to further down the thread.

If someone somewhere had done something to address the situation in Gaza/Israel then they wouldn’t be in this position in the first place (of needing the medical treatment)

Agree … 100%

The only problem with permanently taking in Palestinian refugees is it helps Israel towards its ultimate goal of driving them all out of the land. But since there really isn’t any other option – staying in Gaza is a death sentence – of course we can take in 300. It’s a tiny, tiny number. Every country in the world complicit in arming Israel and in creating this mess should be opening its doors.

Many of the viewpoints on this thread are abhorrent. So what if their families come? We’re talking about children. So what if they stay forever? The alternative is, what, we save their lives then send them back to die? The UK tried this on my grandfather – letting him in as a child, ready to deport him at 16, to die. It was immoral then and is now. Many may also want to return to their homeland – this rainy fascist island ain’t all that.

As for the OP’s point about how it’s mysteriously possible to do this versus impossible to overhaul the entire system: as well as being answered by many smart posters on the difference between charitable funding, and government funding; there’s also the difference between emergency treatment of 300 kids in a life-or-death scenario, and repairing an ongoing system. It’s not hard to see how you can do this for 300 kids on an emergency basis but not expedite the waiting list for literally everyone on it, and posting a thread to ask otherwise is completely disingenuous.