{"id":74039,"date":"2025-08-17T02:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74039\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T02:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:14:15","slug":"us-state-department-stops-issuing-visas-for-gazas-children-to-get-medical-care-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74039\/","title":{"rendered":"US state department stops issuing visas for Gaza\u2019s children to get medical care | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza<\/a> in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer<\/a>, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump<\/a> who has described herself as \u201ca proud Islamophobe\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll visitor visas for individuals from Gaza<\/a> 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,\u201d the state department said in a message posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Loomer was banned from before it was purchased by Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

In a pair of posts on the social network on Friday, Loomer had shared video of badly injured Palestinian children and their family members arriving in Houston<\/a> and San Francisco<\/a> this month, along with false claims that their shouts of joy were \u201cjihadi chants\u201d and that they were \u201cdoing the HAMAS terror whistle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Loomer also falsely claimed that she had \u201cexclusively obtained\u201d the two video clips she shared. One was copied from a medical aid charity\u2019s public Instagram account<\/a> and the other was from the Houston Chronicle\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Badly wounded children from Gaza arrived in Houston for emergency treatment in August.<\/p>\n

After misrepresenting the children, including amputees arriving to get prosthetic legs, as \u201cIslamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone\u201d, Loomer demanded to know \u201cwho at the US State Department under @marcorubio signed off on the visas for Palestinians from a HAMAS hot zone\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Rubio even aware of this?\u201d Loomer wrote, in reference to the secretary of state who was at the time in Alaska meeting Vladimir Putin. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would anyone at the State Department give visas to individuals who live in Gaza, which is run by HAMAS?\u201d Loomer wrote, before falsely stating that \u201c95% of GAZANS voted for HAMAS.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Hamas got 44% of party list votes in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections across Gaza and the West Bank, and lost three of the five districts in Gaza to the secular Fatah party.<\/p>\n

After the visa program was halted, Loomer declared victory. \u201cThis is fantastic news,\u201d she wrote<\/a> in response to the state department announcement. \u201cHopefully all GAZANS will be added to President Trump\u2019s travel ban. There are doctors in other countries. The US is not the world\u2019s hospital!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Laura Loomer had been around in 1940, she\u2019d have been trying to prevent Jewish refugees from entering the US,\u201d Paul Graham, co-founder of the Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, wrote on X <\/a>after the halt on visas for wounded children was announced. \u201cYou know she would. And if Trump had been president then, she\u2019d have succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n