The U.S. State Department announced it is stopping issuance of all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducts “a full and thorough review” of recent medical-humanitarian cases, effectively halting a pathway used to bring wounded children for surgeries and prosthetics unavailable in the Strip.
The move came one day after Laura Loomer — an extremist influencer close to Donald Trump who calls herself “a proud Islamophobe” — posted videos of badly injured Palestinian children arriving in Houston and San Francisco, falsely claiming their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and a “HAMAS terror whistle.” She further smeared the children, including amputees, as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone.” Loomer then declared victory when the State Department announced the halt.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has tried to frame the pause as a simple procedural review following congressional inquiries, but it’s clear this racist and islamphobic move occurred largely as a response to Loomer’s campaign — the far-right activist even publicly thanked the administration after the decision, writing: “This is fantastic news … Hopefully all GAZANS will be added to President Trump’s travel ban. There are doctors in other countries. The US is not the world’s hospital!”
She went on to post: “It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration,” she said on Saturday, though she later posted that more needed to be done to “highlight the crisis of the invasion happening in our country”
HEAL Palestine, the U.S. nonprofit whose video Loomer hijacked, stressed that its program brings severely injured children to the U.S. on short-term visas for essential care not available in Gaza, and that participants return home after treatment. The group said it was “distressed” by the State Department’s cruel decision, emphasizing: “Our mission gives children a renewed chance at life… U.S. tax dollars don’t fund this treatment.”
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund(PCRF) called the decision “dangerous and inhumane,” warning that medical evacuations are a lifeline amid Gaza’s collapsed health system after almost two years of bombing by Israel.
The visa freeze lands as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu escalates the genocide in Gaza and prepares to invade Gaza City. Independent reporting and rights groups have documented that Israel has used starvation as a method of warfare — a war crime — by blocking food, water, fuel, and aid, and destroying vital infrastructure.
Recently, on August 18, Israeli media aired leaked audio of former military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva saying “50 Palestinians must die for every victim of October 7,” adding, “It does not matter now if they are children… They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price.” The remarks further underscore the genocidal logic driving the Zionist state’s policy.
This State Department decision against Gazans is not just bureaucratic cruelty — it is part of the machinery of genocide. By cutting off wounded children from prosthetics and lifesaving surgeries, Washington is turning a racist smear into state policy while Israel escalates its assault, seizing Gaza City and weaponizing starvation against an entire population.
Haliva’s leaked words — and the decades of ethnic cleansing and occupation — show that this brutality has always been deliberate. Yet from the streets of New York to London, protests continue to grow, and so does the rejection of genocide. Governments may choose war and racism, but we can choose to fight back. It will take sustained, collective action, and for unions to step up — uniting struggles across borders and movements — to end the genocide and fight for a future where Palestinian children, and all Palestinians, can live, heal, and thrive.
