Washington The State Department announced that it was suspending all visiting visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducted a review, a day after conservative activist Laura Loomer shared images on social media of youngsters from Gaza traveling to the United States for medical care and questioned how they obtained visas.
The State Department announced that the visas would be suspended while it investigates the recent issuance of a limited number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS’s Face the Nation that the action was taken in response to inquiries about it from several congressional offices.
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.
Trump has minimized 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 medical attention and aid.
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 group temporarily obtains visas for seriously damaged children to receive care in the United States that they are unable to receive 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.
The World Health Organization has frequently advocated for greater medical evacuations from Gaza, where the health system has been severely damaged or destroyed by Israel’s 22-month conflict 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.
