Aug. 29 (UPI) — U.S. officials revoked visas already issued to members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority ahead of next month’s United Nations General Assembly, the State Department confirmed Friday.
The department is also denying outstanding visa requests to members of the PLO and PA for undermining efforts at achieving a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
Both directives are “in accordance with U.S. law,” and come directly from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the department said.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the State Department said in the statement.
“Before the PLO and PA can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism — including the October 7 massacre — and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by U.S. law and as promised by the PLO.”
In July, the State Department sanctioned Palestinian officials from both groups for not complying with their “commitments under the PLO Commitments Compliance Act of 1989 and the Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002.”
The U.N. General Assembly opens on September 9 at the agency’s headquarters in New York City.
Rubio’s department accused both the PLO and PA members of undermining peace talks in Gaza by going outside of formal negotiations. The secretary said both must end appeals to international bodies such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice to “secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state.”
“Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks,” the department said in its statement.
Rubio said the United States remains open to negotiations and restoring the visas if the groups “meet their obligations and demonstrably take concrete steps to return to a constructive path of compromise and peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel.”
The news comes the same day officials in Britain banned Israeli government and military officials from attending an international defense and security event in London next month.
Israel’s war in Gaza is approaching the 700-day mark.
On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces said it was declaring the area around Gaza City a combat zone as it stepped up military operations on the ground in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave.