London (CNN) The terminally-ill infant Charlie Gard will be transferred from a hospital to a hospice and taken off life support unless an agreement for alternative arrangements is made by noon on Thursday, UK's High Court has ruled.

Judge Nicholas Francis issued the order Wednesday after the boy's parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates gave up their fight for him to die at home. "This has been a very very difficult decision to reach," the judge said.

Charlie Gard's want to bring him home from hospital to die.

Charlie suffers from an extremely rare degenerative condition called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, which has caused brain damage and left him unable to move his limbs.

Hospices focus on supportive care in the final stages of illness, and are not usually set up to accommodate keeping an infant in Charlie's condition alive.

Charlie's parents had hoped to assemble a team of doctors and nurses who could move him from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), where he is being cared for, to a hospice so they could spend several days with their son before letting him die.

Read More