Days after several sick and injured children arrived in the U.S. from Gaza for medical treatment, the State Department halted a program that grants visitor visas to people from Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says multiple congressional offices reached out to the State Department asking how those medical-humanitarian visas came to be granted to the children and the adults accompanying them.
Last week, the nonprofit Heal Palestine brought several children to the U.S. from Gaza for medical treatment in cities like Seattle and Houston.
Conservative commentator Laura Loomer called them refugees and a national security threat.
But Secretary Rubio says several congressional offices also provided evidence that they claim shows some of the organizations involved in acquiring these visas have links to Hamas.
Over the weekend, Rubio did not elaborate on what that evidence is, nor which organizations are supposedly involved.
"We are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas. So, we're going to pause those visas, there was just a small numbers of them issued to children, but they come with adults accompanying them, obviously – and we are going to pause this program and re-evaluate how those visas are being vetted and what relationship there has been, if any, by these organizations to the process of acquiring those visas," Rubio said on CBS' Face the Nation.
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In a statement on social media, Heal Palestine said in part that they are "Distressed by the State Department's decision."
"This is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program. Our mission gives children a renewed chance at life," the group said.
Scripps news spoke with Sean Carroll, president of Anera, a nonprofit that is working on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including trying to get medical supplies to facilities there. He says medical facilities in Gaza are in terrible shape because of the war.
"People will lose their lives over that decision and others will may not lose their lives, but they'll lose hope of getting better treatment, of getting of getting better faster, of getting better care," Carroll said, speaking about the State Department's decision. "And I don't think that if we are to be humane and be humans, we should recognize that innocent civilians, children who are, who are severely injured or who are, who need medical care because of a combination of factors of not enough food, of bad hygiene conditions, because of the destruction of water and sanitation systems - they should be helped. And, and I think the U.S. should be at the top of the list of countries that's helping people, innocent civilians, Palestinians from Gaza who need medical care."
It's not clear for how long the State Department plans to halt the visitor visa program for Gaza.
The World Health Organization says there are more than 14,000 people in Gaza currently in need of life-saving medical care.
Before the war, between 50 to 100 people from Gaza traveled for needed medical care every day. Right now, the borders are closed — with very few people able to leave for medical treatment.
