WashingtonThe State Department announced that it was suspending all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducted a review, a day after conservative activist Laura Loomer shared videos on social media showing youngsters from Gaza arriving in the United States for medical care and raising questions about how they obtained visas.
The State Department announced on Saturday that the visas will be suspended while it investigates the recent issuance of a limited number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas. Secretary of State Marco Rubioon stated on Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation that the measure was taken in response to inquiries from several congressional offices.
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Only a small percentage of the visas granted to youngsters in need of medical assistance were accompanied by adults, according to Rubio. Without offering proof or identifying the organizations, he claimed that the congressional offices had contacted them with evidence that some of the groups boasting about and active in obtaining these visas have close ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas.
Therefore, we are going to halt this program and reassess how those visas are being screened and what connection, if any, these groups have to the process of obtaining those visas, he stated.
Loomer shared images on X on Friday showing Gazan youngsters who, with the help of a group called HEAL Palestine, arrived in San Francisco and Houston earlier this month for medical care. These individuals from Gaza were able to enter the United States, she added, despite the US declaring that it is not taking in Palestinian refugees under the Trump administration.
She demanded that the person who approved the visas be sacked and referred to it as a national security concern. Rubio, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, and Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom of California were all tagged by her.
Trump has downplayed Loomer’s impact on his administration, but once she publicly chastised them, a number of people quickly departed or were fired.
Regarding how many of the visas had been issued and whether the decision to stop granting visas to individuals from Gaza was related to Loomer’s posts, the State Department declined to comment on Sunday.
In a statement released on Sunday, HEAL Palestine expressed its displeasure with the State Department’s decision to suspend visiting permits from Gaza. According to the group, it is a nonprofit American humanitarian organization that provides children in Palestine with immediate help and medical attention.
This is the 15th evacuated child to arrive in the United States in the past two weeks, according to a post on the organization’s Facebook page on Thursday that included a picture of a boy from Gaza traveling from Egypt to St. Louis for medical treatment.
According to the statement, “the organization brings severely injured children to the U.S. on temporary visas for treatment they can’t get at home.” According to the statement, the youngsters and any accompanying family members return to the Middle East after treatment.
It stated that this is a medical treatment program rather than a resettlement scheme for refugees.
More medical evacuations from Gaza have been demanded by the World Health Organization on numerous occasions. The territory’s health system has been severely damaged or destroyed by Israel’s more than 22-month war against Hamas.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on social media on Wednesday that more than 14,800 patients still require life-saving medical care that is unavailable in Gaza and urged other nations to provide assistance.
The WHO sends lists of patients to Israeli authorities for security clearance, according to a WHO report last year on the medical evacuation procedure from Gaza. It urged for a higher rate of permissions from Israeli authorities and pointed out that 50 to 100 patients were leaving Gaza every day for medical care before to the start of the war.
After Israel cut off all aid to the enclave, which is home to over 2 million people, for more than ten weeks earlier this year, the U.N. and its allies believe that there are not enough medications or even basic medical supplies in Gaza.
Stop the fire! Tedros noted on Wednesday that the best treatment is peace.
