(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. State Department has announced that it’s suspending the issuance of all visitor visas for people from the war-torn Gaza Strip, including children in need of urgent medical care.
“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 State Department wrote in a post on X on Saturday.
Based on State Department statistics from January 2025 through the end of May 2025, a total of 3,804 class B1/B2 visas have been issued for individuals with Palestinian Authority travel documents. While the State Department numbers do not specify the purpose of the trips nor how many of the 3,804 visas issued were class B1 or B2, individuals seeking to enter the United States for tourism or medical treatment fall under the B2 visa class, while B1 visas cover business travel.
An ABC News request for comment sent to the State Department did not immediately receive a response.
Describing one of the latest transfers of Palestinians seeking treatment in the U.S., HEAL Palestine, an American nonprofit organization, announced that 11 severely injured Palestinian children, along with 26 accompanying family members, successfully crossed from Gaza into Jordan on July 30, 2025, in coordination from the World Health Organization and were planning to enter the U.S. in August.
“Many of the children suffer from critical injuries such as amputations, severe burns, and trauma-related complications – conditions that Gaza’s collapsed health system can no longer treat,” according to HEAL Palestine.
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