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Palestinians carry bags filled with food and humanitarian aid provided by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization approved by Israel, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on June 3, 2025. Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The U.S. State Department halted all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza, amid a review into what the department said was a “small number” of recently issued temporary medical-humanitarian visas.
“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 said in a statement it shared on X on Aug. 16.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The decision to suspend all visitor visas for Gazans was announced a day after political activist Laura Loomer, a supporter of President Donald Trump, posted on social media about recent flights of Gazans arriving in San Francisco and Houston.
“Despite the US saying we are not accepting Palestinian ’refugees’ into the United States under the Trump administration, I have obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be refugees from Gaza coming into the United States via San Francisco and Houston, Texas this month,” Loomer wrote in a lengthy Aug. 15 X post. “The Palestinians traveled from Gaza to the US with the help of a group called ‘Heal Palestine.’”
Heal Palestine describes itself as a nonprofit that formed in 2024 to provide relief to Palestinians. The organization said it has supported food kitchens inside the embattled Gaza Strip, as well as education programs, medical clinics, and flights to bring severely injured children from the Gaza Strip to the United States “for specialized medical care that they cannot access locally.”
In her post, Loomer tagged the X accounts of the State Department and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She questioned how these Gazans were permitted entry into the United States.
“This is a national security threat,” Loomer wrote. “We didn’t vote for more Islamic immigration into the United States. Who signed off on these visas? They should be fired.”
The posts soon attracted the attention of several Republican lawmakers.
“Deeply concerned about the incoming flights—including to Texas—allegedly filled with folks from Gaza as reported by [Loomer],” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in an X post on the evening of Aug. 15. “Inquiring.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also expressed opposition to the flights in another X post.
In an Aug. 16 X post, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said, “[Trump] and [Rubio] have immediately halted visas to Gazans that were being issued by deep state actors while we get to the bottom of how this national security risk was allowed.
“Massive credit needs to be given to [Loomer] for uncovering this and making me and other officials aware.”
Earlier in August, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot announced, in an interview with France Info, that France would deport a foreign student from the Gaza Strip accused of sharing social media posts advocating violence toward Jewish people. Barrot further announced that France would pause its program facilitating evacuations from the Gaza Strip while an investigation of its evacuation program is ongoing and that it would apply additional scrutiny to Gaza Strip evacuees currently in France.
On Aug. 16, the University Hospital of Pisa in Italy reported that a 20-year-old woman evacuated from the Gaza Strip earlier in the week had died. The hospital said the woman had been in a “state of severe physical deterioration” and entered into a state of respiratory crisis, followed by cardiac arrest.
On Aug. 14, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani announced that his country had completed its 14th evacuation flight from the Gaza Strip since 2024.
The Gaza Strip has been a conflict zone in the ongoing Israel–Hamas war triggered by the Hamas terrorist group’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
