The US has begun denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in advance of the UN general assembly meeting in September, the state department said on Friday.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was included in the restrictions. Abbas had been planning to travel to New York to deliver an address to the UN general assembly.
Abbas’ office said it was astonished by the visa decision and argued that it violated the UN “headquarters agreement”.
Under an agreement as host of the UN in New York, the US is not supposed to refuse visas for officials heading to the world body for the general assembly, but the state department said it was complying with the agreement by allowing the Palestinian mission to attend.
“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 a statement.
The new measure further aligns Donald Trump’s administration with Israel’s rightwing government which adamantly rejects a Palestinian state. Israeli officials have repeatedly equated the broadly secular PA, which exercises partial authority in the occupied West Bank, with its bitter Islamist rival Hamas.
Using a term favoured by Trump to deride his legal troubles while out of office, the state department accused the Palestinians of “lawfare” by raising grievances against Israel at the international criminal court and international court of justice.
It called on the PA to drop “efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state”.
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, thanked the Trump administration “for this bold step and for standing by Israel once again” in a post on X.
Stéphane Dujarric, a UN spokesperson, said it was “important” for all states and observers, which includes the Palestinians, to be represented at a summit scheduled for the day before the general assembly begins. “We obviously hope that this will be resolved,” Dujarric said.
The US statement justifying the new measure echoed claims often repeated by Israeli officials.
“Before the PLO and PA can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism – including the 7 October massacre – and end incitement to terrorism in education,” it said.
The PLO was founded in 1964 as an umbrella organisation for Palestinian factions and recognised a decade later as the sole political representative of the Palestinian people. The PA was set up almost 20 years later as an interim body that would provide an institutional framework for a Palestinian state.
Both are likely to be integral to any future Palestinian state. Arab powers, the UK, European countries and others want the PA to take a central role in the administration of Gaza if the conflict can be ended, though they agree it needs reform.
Australia, Canada, the UK and France are to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly next month if certain conditions are met, in a move that has infuriated Israel.
Israel’s government has rejected any role for the PA in Gaza and said that recognition “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”.
Though Israel’s government is under mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its offensive in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has ordered military forces to launch an assault to seize Gaza City. Once a major commercial and cultural hub, it has been reduced to ruins and is home to hundreds of thousands of destitute Palestinians after repeated rounds of fighting.
The Israeli offensive has so far killed 63,000 people, mostly civilians, injured 150,000 and displaced the vast majority of the population. The UN last week declared a famine in and around Gaza City, blaming “systematic obstruction” by Israel of humanitarian aid deliveries.
“We have begun preliminary operations and the initial stages of the attack on Gaza City, and we are currently operating with great force on the outskirts of the city,” Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesperson, said on X.
The war was triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 abducted. About 50 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom less than half are thought to be still alive.
Activists each year press the US to deny visas to leaders of countries that they oppose, often over grave human rights violations, but their appeals are almost always rejected.
In a historic step in 1988, the general assembly convened in Geneva rather than New York to hear the then PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, after the US refused to allow him in New York.
Additional reporting by AFP
