Washington (AP) – A day after a conservative activist Laura Rumer Video posted to kids’ social media Gaza Arrived in the US for treatment and questioning how they obtained their visas, the State Department said it has suspended all visitor visas for Gaza people whose reviews are pending.
The State Department said on Saturday The visa will be suspended Recently, we are looking at how “a minority temporary medical and humanistic visa” have been issued. Secretary of State Marco Rubio On Sunday, he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that it was after an “outreach from the council office asking questions about it.”
Rubio said there are “just a few” of visas issued to children in need of medical assistance, but adults are accompanied by them. He argued that the Congressional office reached out with evidence that “some of the organisations involved in boasting and boasting about these visas have strong ties to terrorist groups like Hamas,” without providing evidence or naming them.
As a result, he states: “We will suspend this program and reassess how these visas are being reviewed and whatever their organizations have to do with the process of obtaining these visas,” he said.
On Friday, Rumer posted a video to the children of X in Gaza who arrived in San Francisco and Houston earlier this month with the help of an organization called Heal Palestine. “Even though the US says it doesn’t accept Palestinian ‘refugees’ in the United States under the Trump administration,” Gaza natives were able to travel to the United States, she said.
She called it a “national security threat” and called for who to register on the visa and that person be fired. She tagged President Rubio Donald Trumpvice president jd vanceGop Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the California government. Gavin NewsomDemocrat.
I have Trump The impact of downplayed rooms His administration, however, several officials quickly left or were removed shortly after she publicly criticized him.
The State Department on Sunday declined to comment on how many visas were granted and whether the decision to suspend visas to people in Gaza has anything to do with Rumer’s posting.
Heel Palestine said in a statement on Sunday that it was “stricken” by the State Department’s decision to suspend visitor visas from Gaza. The group called it “an American humanitarian nonprofit providing emergency assistance and healthcare to Palestinian children.”
A post on the organization’s Facebook page on Thursday said the Gaza boy left Egypt to head to St. Louis for treatment, and was “the 15th evacuated child to arrive in the United States in the last two weeks.”
The organization will bring “severely injured children” to the United States on temporary visas for treatment that they cannot get at home, the statement said. After treatment, the families who accompanied the children were back in the Middle East, the statement said.
“It’s a treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program,” he said.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for more medical evacuations from Gaza, where more than 22 months of war with Hamas has significantly destroyed or damaged much of the territorial health system.
“Over 14,800 patients still need life-saving care that is not available in Gaza.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus He said on social media on Wednesday, calling for more countries to provide support.
The WHO explanation of the medical evacuation process from Gaza, released last year, explained that WHO will submit a list of patients to Israeli authorities for security clearance. He pointed out that 50 to 100 patients left Gaza every day for treatment before the war began in Gaza, calling for a high rate of approval from Israeli authorities.
The UN and partners say that even medicines and basic medical supplies are low in Gaza after Israel cut off all aid to more than 2 million territories over more than 10 weeks this year.
“Cerezage! Peace is the best medicine,” Tedros added Wednesday.
