Annie Comes Home: URGENT: U.S. government suspends visitor visas for people from Gaza

Thursday, October 9, 2025

URGENT: U.S. government suspends visitor visas for people from Gaza

Pamela: The Israeli government and Hamas have reportedly agreed to phase one of a ceasefire plan that would allow for the release of hostages and detainees, and withdrawal of Israeli military forces from parts of Gaza.[1]

After more than two years of pain and suffering, we, along with all those who value peace and justice, welcome news of a pause in the violence and the chance for families to be reunited.

Crucially, this means the influx of urgently-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a respite from incredible violence and terror for millions of people across an entire region.

Yet in this hopeful moment, too many lives remain at incredible risk, and a Trump administration policy would leave them to suffer unnecessarily. Earlier this year, Trump's State Department stopped issuing temporary medical-humanitarian visas to people in Gaza — reversing a long-standing policy that allowed a small number of people, many of them children, to access life-saving medical care in the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the pause may be temporary, but that was months ago — and it's time we made the political costs of this choice too hard to bear. Let's take advantage of every second of this break in the violence and ensure everyone at State hears overwhelming support to reinstate this policy and help people access the life-saving medical care they need.

This is a moment where we should be scaling up access to aid and medical care, not restricting it even further. Sign now and urge Secretary Rubio to allow people from Gaza to seek care and treatment in the United States.

ACT NOW

This decision to stop medical-humanitarian visas isn't about protecting people or making anyone safer. It's about weaponizing our government to punish — to punish people starving as a result of U.S.-backed Israeli government restrictions on aid, and to punish people the Israeli military has bombed with BILLIONS of dollars in U.S.-made weapons.

These visas offered hundreds of people a chance at a future, until the State Department slammed the door shut on them in August.

Children like one-year-old Saedra, born with congenital defects in both legs and among those the Ohio-based humanitarian group HEAL Palestine helped evacuate, along with her mother, to Chicago for care.[2] Or the 11 other critically injured children, ages 6 to 15, whom HEAL helped bring, along with their siblings and caregivers, to cities including Boston, Atlanta, and Dallas just days ago. Many had lost limbs in the war. Once their care is completed, they will go to Egypt.

Andrew Miller, a former senior State Department official on Israeli-Palestinian affairs in the Biden administration, told The New York Times that Gazans can only get medical-humanitarian visas by appearing at an embassy in Jerusalem, Cairo, or Amman and undergoing security checks that include clearance from the U.S. government and the Israeli military.[3]

Now that the first phase of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal has been agreed to, we need to keep up the momentum and ensure the Trump administration gets people the medical care they desperately need by reversing this long-standing policy.

You can help get their attention today, Pamela. Because when a whole movement of people fed up with this violence-first status quo keeps speaking out, decision-makers understand that it's time to choose a different path.

Our job, now and always, is to defend communities facing violence and injustice. Join us to urge Sec. Rubio to issue medical-humanitarian visas to people from Gaza.

"War is stupid. I want it to end." That's what Abdullah Jabr, a then eight-year-old Palestinian living in the Bureij refugee camp, told Al Jazeera almost two years ago.[4]

He was right then, and he's still right. People in Israel, Palestine, and around the world deserve a lasting, sustainable peace. The deal announced today is step one, but our work won't be done until a lasting agreement that ends the war in its entirety is reached.

We'll continue to turn the tide on a status quo that allows for wars like the one we've witnessed for too many months — by centering human rights, justice, accountability, and healing. And by doing it together.

Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team

1. CNN, "Israel and Hamas agree to first phase of Gaza ceasefire plan"
2. CBS News, "State Department pauses visitor visas for Gaza residents in need of medical care in U.S."
3. The New York Times, "U.S. Pauses Visitor Visas for Gazans After Right-Wing Outcry"
4. Al Jazeera, "'War is stupid and I want it to end': Injured Palestinian children speak"