Young Gaza woman flown to Italy for treatment, dies
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Arab News
6 hours ago
- Arab News
US suspends visas for Gazans after far-right influencer posts
WASHINGTON: The US government said Saturday it is suspending visitor visas for Gazans after a far-right influencer with the ear of President Donald Trump complained that wounded Palestinians had been allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States. The announcement came one day after a series of furious social media posts by Laura Loomer, who is known for promoting racist conspiracy theories and claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job. '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, which is led by Marco Rubio, wrote on X. In a series of posts on X Friday, Loomer called on the State Department to stop giving visas to Palestinians from Gaza who she said were 'pro-HAMAS... affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and funded by Qatar,' without providing evidence. Loomer's target was the US-based charity HEAL Palestine, which said last week it had helped 11 critically wounded Gazan children — as well as their caregivers and siblings — arrive safely in the US for medical treatment. It was 'the largest single medical evacuation of injured children from Gaza to the US,' the charity said on its website. 'Truly unacceptable,' Loomer wrote in another X post. 'Someone needs to be fired at @StateDept when @marcorubio figures out who approved the visas.' 'Qatar transported these GAZANS into the US via @qatarairways,' she said. Qatar is 'literally flooding our country with jihadis,' she added. Loomer said she had spoken to the staff of Republican Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, adding that they were 'also looking into how these GAZANS got visas to come into the US.' Republican Congressman Randy Fine explicitly commended Loomer after the visa change was announced, in a sign of her sway over some US policy. 'Massive credit needs to be given to @LauraLoomer for uncovering this and making me and other officials aware. Well done, Laura,' Fine wrote on X. The Palestine Children's Relief Fund, a US-based charity, called on the Trump administration to 'reverse this dangerous and inhumane decision.' Over the last 30 years the charity has evacuated thousands of Palestinian children to the US for medical care, it said a statement. 'Medical evacuations are a lifeline for the children of Gaza who would otherwise face unimaginable suffering or death due to the collapse of medical infrastructure in Gaza.' Though Loomer holds no official position, she wields significant power, and is reported to have successfully pushed for the dismissal of several senior US security officials she deemed disloyal to Trump. In July, Loomer took aim at a job offer made to a highly qualified Biden-era official for a prestigious position at the West Point military academy. The Pentagon rescinded the offer one day later. Trump also fired the head of the highly sensitive National Security Agency, Timothy Haugh, and his deputy Wendy Noble in April at the apparent urging of Loomer, after she met with the president at the White House. 'No other content creator or journalist has gotten as many Biden holdovers fired from the Trump admin!' Loomer posted on X Saturday.
Arab News
12 hours ago
- Arab News
UK must bring sick, injured children from Gaza ‘without delay,' MPs say
LONDON: The British government must bring sick and injured Palestinian children from Gaza to the UK 'without delay,' a group of MPs has said. The cross-party group of 96 parliamentarians made the appeal in a letter to senior government ministers, the BBC reported. Children in the Palestinian enclave are at risk of imminent death, and any barriers preventing their evacuation to Britain must be removed, they said. Responding to Gaza's 'decimated' healthcare system requires adequate funding and a detailed timeline for child evacuations, the MPs added. UN children's charity UNICEF has said that more than 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or injured since the beginning of the Gaza war in late 2023. The medical and humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave has reached 'horrific proportions,' said the MPs' letter, which was coordinated by Dr. Simon Opher, a Labour MP and GP. Signatories to the letter, addressing the health, home, and foreign secretaries, said they were working with Medecins sans Frontieres to expedite the evacuation of injured and ill Palestinian children to Britain. The children and their families must be allowed to claim asylum after their treatment is completed, the letter said. The UK Home Office previously said that biometric checks would be carried out before Palestinian children and their carers travel to the UK, a decision that was questioned by the letter's signatories. Plans to evacuate seriously ill or injured children from Gaza were being carried out 'at pace,' the government said earlier in August. A spokesperson said: 'We are accelerating plans to evacuate children from Gaza who require urgent medical care, including bringing them to the UK for specialist treatment where that is the best option.' Several hundred Palestinian children are expected to be evacuated as part of the scheme. Since late 2023, the UK has channeled funding toward the treatment of injured and seriously ill Palestinians in hospitals across the Middle East. Liz Harding, of MSF's UK branch, welcomed the MPs' letter and called on the government to waive its biometric visa requirement. Britain must 'urgently act on its commitment by creating a dedicated, publicly funded pathway based on clinical need, not bureaucracy,' she added.
Asharq Al-Awsat
12 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israeli Military Prepares to Relocate Residents to Southern Gaza
The Israeli military will provide residents of Gaza with tents and shelter equipment starting from Sunday in preparation for relocating them from combat zones to south of the strip, military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Saturday. Israel has said it plans a new offensive to seize control of the northern Gaza City, the enclave's largest urban center. Meanwhile, the United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza. Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory's Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child was among them. That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251.
