THE United States Department of State has announced it will extend visa sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), preventing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from travelling to New York ahead of his address to the United Nations General Assembly next week for the second year in a row.
The State Department said the restrictions were being extended over what it described as the failure of the PA and PLO to reform in line with commitments made to Washington, as well as activities it said undermine prospects for peace.
“As a consequence of their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace, the United States will extend sanctions that deny visas to PLO members and PA officials,” the State Department said in a statement.
The State Department accused the PA of violating US law by pursuing international recognition of Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations, taking its dispute with Israel to international courts and providing payments to people the US and Israel label as convicted attackers and their families.
It added that the PA mission to the UN would keep a waiver under the UN Headquarters Agreement, which allows its regular staff to continue working even as individual officials are barred from entering the US.
Abbas’s speech this year had been expected to press for international recognition of Palestinian statehood and renewed momentum behind a two-state solution, following a wave of recognitions this month by the United Kingdom, France, Canada and other Western governments, as well as to draw attention to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the rapid expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and settler pogroms across the occupied West Bank.
No Israeli officials face equivalent US travel restrictions, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Last year’s ban drew criticism from Palestinian officials and UN human rights experts, who said the visa bans breach the US’s obligation to allow individuals invited by the UN to travel to its New York headquarters, and have argued that singling out Palestinian representatives while shielding Israeli leaders undermines Washington’s stated commitment to a negotiated peace.
The United States has also maintained broader restrictions affecting people travelling on documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority under its 2026 visa policy.
