The State Department announced Wednesday that it would continue to deny visas to Palestinian officials because of actions taken by their governing and political groups that “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” including trying to bring cases to international tribunals.
The denial of visas would keep Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, from attending the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York. The main part of that conclave starts next week.
This marks the second year in a row that the Trump administration has prevented Mr. Abbas from attending. In August 2025, weeks before the United Nations meeting that year, the State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had decided not to issue visas to Palestinian officials in order to hold them “accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The State Department demanded at the time that the two Palestinian groups “consistently repudiate terrorism,” including the Hamas-led attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and “end incitement to terrorism in education.” It also cited contacts between Palestinian officials and the International Criminal Court.
The Trump administration opposes Palestinians trying to bring cases to that court or the International Court of Justice.
About that time, the department also suspended issuing almost all types of visitor visas for anyone holding a Palestinian passport. That went well beyond earlier restrictions on visas of Palestinian visitors from Gaza.
The State Department said in a statement on Wednesday that it was extending the punitive visa measurements because the two Palestinian groups had not done enough to change their practices and were “glorifying terrorism.” The department said it had notified Congress of the visa ban extension.
