State Department ruling refusing Gaza children access to U.S. medical treatment remains in force. Diana De Gette commits to look into this.

Palestinian children in Gaza … the midst of a genocide, perpetrated by Israel, largely with U.S. weapons and strategic satellite advice

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What is noticeable from a simple Google scan is that those children that were able to receive treatment here in the USA got considerable publicity locally. Abdul Aziz’s Colorado visit received wide local media coverage. The same is true for Palestinian children in other states as media reporting in the Bay Area, Seattle and other cities indicates. Such media attention, although essentially local humanitarian reports sheds light on the horrors of Israel’s genocidal war of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It not only greatly embarrasses – and exposes – the murderous IDF campaign to target civilians, including women and children, but it also sheds vivid light on how that enormous store of U.S. weaponry is being used in Gaza against civilians.

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At a meeting with U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette, among other things, constituents criticized the State Department decision to refuse Palestinian Gaza children US visa access to U.S. medical facilities. In attendance were members of Colorado’s Palestinian Community, two representatives of Front Range Jewish Voice for Peace and Dr. Mohamed Kuziez, Syrian pediatrician who spearheads Colorado’s “Doctors Against Genocide”. Kuziez spent three weeks in Gaza through Doctors against Genocide caring for wounded Palestinian children, victims of Israeli aggression there.

While refusing to sign on to the Block The Bomb Act, Congresswoman DeGette committed to using her influence to reverse the State Department ban.

As the August 16, 2025 edition of the NY Times noted at the time of decision: “The Trump Administration announced … that it had `paused’ approval of visitor visas for `people from Gaza’, a key pathway for those seeking medical care in the United States, including children who arrived in recent weeks with serious conditions”.

The article, while true enough, is deceptive.

The State Department didn’t just “pause” providing visas for wounded Gazans to receive medical treatment, it canceled such visas. Three months later (at the time of this writing) there has been no change in the policy, nor has there been any State Department “review” (as promised) to determine if the entry of such people represents “a threat to national security” – an allegation that is ludicrous beyond belief. Nor are these visa restrictions, as the Times put it restricting entry to “people from Gaza”. These “people” requesting visas are all children from the ages of 6 to 15, children being targeted by the Israel Defense Force (IDF).

The headline of an article on the same subject from the British news source, The Guardian, was more forthright, more honest. It read, “U.S. state department stops issuing visas for Gaza’s children. That article details the role of rightwing personality Laura Loomer, who apparently has access to President Trump. Loomer proudly describes herself as “pro-White nationalist and a `proud Islamophobe” – in other words an unabashed racist. On social media – she has a large following – Loomer misrepresented the wounded children, including amputees arriving for prosthetic legs as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone”.

Abdul Aziz arrives in Denver from Gaza and Cairo. He is greated by his uncle at Denver International Airport (late January, 2025). R.Prince photo.

Before the visa ban went into effect, several Gaza children were given visas for medical treatment in Colorado. One of them was Abdul Aziz, in Colorado Springs for a prosthetic leg. He lost his leg – it being amputated above the knee, after being hit by shrapnel from an Israeli bombing in Gaza. The amputation was conducted with no anesthetic as Israel has prevented the entry of virtually all medical supplies and equipment into Gaza. He was brought to Colorado through the auspices of HEAL PALESTINE, a non-profit humanitarian aid organization dedicated to providing medical assistance and relief to those in need.

Why would the Trump Administration go so far as to prevent wounded Palestinian kids, those who have lost limbs and suffered other serious injuries, from entering the United States for medical treatment? It seems – and is – so cruel. From the data I could find online, while the number of children needing such care as a result of the Gaza genocide is today somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 – that at the time of the ban, less than 70 had been given medical visas. Another local physician besides Kuziez related that even those granted visa entry had difficulty finding facilities that would be willing to care for them – which is a story in and of itself that deserves attention.

I suspect that Laura Loomer’s much vaunted access to the White House was simply a pretext for a more substantial reason for the visa denial, and that she and her shrill pronouncements provide the Trump Administration with a pretext to undercut the growing sentiment here that the U.S. is supporting a genocide.

What is noticeable from a simple Google scan is that those children that were able to receive treatment here in the USA got considerable publicity locally. Abdul Aziz’s Colorado visit received wide local media coverage. The same is true for Palestinian children in other states as media reporting in the Bay Area, Seattle and other cities indicates. Such media attention, although essentially local humanitarian reports sheds light on the horrors of Israel’s genocidal war of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It not only greatly embarrasses – and exposes – the murderous IDF campaign to target civilians, including women and children, but it also sheds vivid light on how that enormous store of U.S. weaponry is being used in Gaza against civilians.

What more vivid way to expose the U.S. role in supporting Israel in Gaza than to have the victims its policies treated in American hospitals? Very bad p.r. and p.r is the name of the game these days.

Let us see if De Gette can turn this “visa blockade” around.