LONDON: A first group of sick and wounded children from Gaza are headed to Britain under a scheme allowing them to receive medical treatment, the UK's health ministry confirmed Sunday.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced in July that Britain will evacuate Gazan children for treatment, noting most hospitals in the Palestinian territory are no longer functioning.

The government has said the scheme is essential due to the lack of vital medicines and supplies in Gaza and medical workers being unable to do their jobs safely.

"We expect the children and their immediate family members to arrive in the UK in the coming weeks," said a health ministry statement, noting that no flight details would be released "for operational security reasons".

In an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper on Friday, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the first group of children "have left Gaza and are on the way... to the UK".

The paper reported the children are being cared for by medics in another country in the region, before coming to Britain for treatment.

A small number of injured Gazan children have already been brought to Britain under a private programme, Project Pure Hope.

Ministers have not said how many children will arrive under the new scheme, with reports the first cohort could comprise 30 to 50.

Authorities are also working to evacuate students with places to study 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," Cooper told The Mirror.

"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."

Israel launched its Gaza offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for the cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,756 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.

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First group of sick, injured Gaza kids UK-bound under govt scheme