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LONDON: A Palestinian Ph.D student from Gaza who was awarded a University of Glasgow scholarship has described her heartbreak after her family was denied entry to Britain.
Manar Al-Houbi received confirmation of her successful scholarship application in May, The Guardian reported.
Her tuition fees as well as housing and living costs were covered by the tuition and a grant from the Council for At Risk Academics charity.
Al-Houbi completed visa applications for her family, but was told by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office last month that her family would be denied entry to the UK.
The scholarship “felt almost too good to be true,” the Ph.D student said.
Most international students in the UK are forbidden from bringing dependents with them, but full-time Ph.D students — such as Al-Houbi — are exempt from this rule, and can bring family members to Britain.
David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, said in a recent interview with the BBC, referring to Al-Houbi: “It’s important to understand that we are actually dependent on Israeli permissions to bring those people out, and that has not been easy to get.”
Israeli officials, however, have denied preventing Al-Houbi’s exit from Gaza.
She is now living with her family in a tent in Khan Younis. The family home in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the early stages of the Israel-Hamas war.
“The fact that the UK government hasn’t even bothered to make a request on my family’s behalf is heartbreaking,” Al-Houbi told The Guardian.
Her Ph.D research is set to focus on using media and education to combat anti-women violence and promote peace efforts.
She hopes to return to Gaza after completing the program to teach and launch social programs.
Al-Houbi is “such an excellent candidate for a scholarship that she was able to pick the scheme that allows her to bring dependents,” said Prof. Alison Phipps, academic supervisor at the University of Glasgow.
“No parent should be forced to choose their studies over their family, not least when this is a firm criterion of the scholarship itself.”
An FCDO spokesperson said: “The government is working with universities to identify eligible students and to assist them to leave Gaza and take up their studies in the UK. This has been a highly complex process, but we have already successfully evacuated a number of students and expect further cohorts to arrive in the coming weeks.”
The first group of Palestinian university students from Gaza arrived in Britain last month after a sustained campaign led by academics and rights groups.
The CEO of the charity that awarded Al-Houbi her scholarship grant said his organization “is ready and waiting to support this family and we call on the UK government to support their evacuation immediately.”

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV called Sunday for “courage” from those forging a peace plan for Gaza, as world leaders prepared to attend a summit on ending the conflict.
“The agreement to begin the peace process has given a spark of hope in the Holy Land,” the US-born pontiff said at the end of Sunday’s Angelus prayer.
“I encourage the parties involved to courageously continue on the path toward a just and lasting peace that respects the legitimate aspirations of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples,” he said.
US President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will on Monday chair a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh which aims to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
International leaders will discuss implementing the first phase of a ceasefire, two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack triggered a counter-offensive by Israel that killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.
“Two years of conflict have left death and destruction everywhere, especially in the hearts of those who have brutally lost their children, their parents, their friends, everything,” Pope Leo said.
He asked God to help “accomplish what now seems humanly impossible: to rediscover that the other is not an enemy, but a brother to look to, forgive, and offer the hope of reconciliation.”
The pope also spoke of his “sorrow” following the news of “new, violent attacks that have hit several cities and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, causing the deaths of innocent people, including children.”
“My heart goes out to the suffering population, who have lived in anguish and deprivation for years,” he said, calling once again for “an end to the violence.”
Kyiv says diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have slowed in recent months, in part because global attention has shifted to the war in Gaza.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Trump to broker peace in Ukraine like in “the Middle East,” saying if the US president could stop one war, “others can be stopped as well.”