Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, expresses our outrage, condemnation and commitment to pursue justice for the children and people of Palestine, following the Trump administration’s latest announcement of its complicity and direct involvement in genocide: namely, the halting of visas to all Palestinians from Gaza, particularly humanitarian and medical visas for severely injured Palestinian children and families. U.S.-based medical charities and hospitals had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to provide advanced medical care to the most critically injured in Gaza, many of them amputees, applied for and received visas for the injured Palestinians, and coordinated their departure.

Now, after a manufactured, openly racist social media post or two by extreme-right Zionist Laura Loomer, the Trump administration has cancelled all such visas for medical care. It so outraged these fascist forces to see hundreds of U.S. citizens and residents warmly welcoming Palestinian children with love and care that they immediately acted to suppress any such expression of humanity, mutual aid or common affection.

Let us be clear: the only reason these Palestinians are injured in the first place is because of the Israeli entity carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza with U.S.-made and -supplied weaponry. It is the United States, its weapons and its policies, that burned, mangled and mutilated these children. It is appalling that only dozens of children have been admitted to the United States in the past 22 months despite the efforts of dedicated charities and health workers, due to the already extremely restrictive visa policies of the U.S., working hand in hand with Israel to escalate the genocide and eliminate its witnesses. 

In this context, people of good conscience in this country, who wish to show some humanity in the face of inhumanity, raised funds to provide the absolute minimum: medical care for the most severe cases of those injured by the U.S.-Zionist genocide. Medical professionals who stand against genocide have left aside everything to go to Gaza – when they can rarely get in – and others here have volunteered to provide care. This reflects the same spirit as the thousands – indeed, millions – who have taken to the streets for Palestine and taken action to shut down genocide.

The order by the Trump administration is obviously an attack on the Palestinian people, and it is also a slap in the face to every person and health worker of conscience in this country, and an attack on even the simplest and most universally supported humanitarian measures for child victims of genocide.

Of course, this latest attack on Palestinian humanity comes as no surprise, coming as it does from the same U.S. government that, regardless of administration, has provided tens of billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry, paid for by our tax dollars, to carry out genocide in Gaza; provided operational military and intelligence participation in the genocide; directs and staffs the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” death traps that aim to impose ethnic cleansing and further mass displacement upon our people; attacks our communities nationwide, targeting students and activists for deportation; uses the veto power and diplomatic cover to provide protection for Israeli genocide at the United Nations; criminalizes even the boycott of the genocidal regime; and acts in all ways as a full partner in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, requiring accountability in all international courts and through popular action.

After all, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who announced the “pause” on visas for injured Palestinian children from Gaza – has repeatedly demanded the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, expressed support for the genocide, threatened U.S. students for speaking out against genocide, and wholeheartedly committed the State Department to a full-time policy of aiding, abetting and indeed, directing, genocide against the Palestinian people.

The denial of health care and visas to the most severely injured Palestinian children just makes clear once again that the genocide is indeed about the massacre of our future, and we are dedicated and committed to organizing to preserve and realize the very future they seek to destroy.

Now is the time for action:

• Demonstrate, take direct action, and shut it down for Palestine.
• Mobilize for mass actions at public squares, federal buildings and complicit institutions
• Take direct action against the war machine, such as blockading cargo for Israel – particularly weaponry – at ports and other shipping points
• Surround the embassies and consulates of the occupation, the offices of the nonprofits funding it, and their complicit partners, from members of Congress to corporations. Shut them down with people power: make it impossible for them to carry out their genocidal day-to-day activities.
• Continue to confront the embassies of complicit Arab regimes like those of Egypt and Jordan – there must be real, meaningful counter-pressure to U.S. orders for genocide participation.

As Al-Awda, PRRC, we emphasize that we are not deterred and will not be silenced; we are only even more outraged and will never stop organizing and mobilizing for the children, men, women and elders of Palestine, for an immediate end to the genocide, including the imposed and engineered famine; for the right to return of every Palestinian refugee; and for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.