UPDATE - US suspends all visitor visas for Gaza residents

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By Rabia Iclal Turan and Fatma Zehra Solmaz

CHANGES LEDE, DECK, ADDS BACKGROUND

WASHINGTON (AA) —The US State Department suspended all visitor visas for Gaza Strip residents on Saturday, citing a review of procedures used to grant recent medical and humanitarian entries.

“All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days," the department said in a post on the US social media company X.

The move happened to coincide with far-right influencer Laura Loomer’s posts a few hours earlier attacking three severely injured Palestinian children and their families who arrived in the US earlier this month for treatment through the humanitarian efforts of US-based nonprofit HEAL, as she tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US State Department, demanding they be barred from entry.

Since October 2023, Israel’s brutal offensive on Gaza has killed nearly 61,900 Palestinians—the vast majority women and children—according to local authorities, while devastating Gaza’s infrastructure, collapsing its health system, and causing acute food shortages. The relentless bombing has destroyed the enclave and led to a high risk of famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.