Gaza students ask Rice to help them enter U.S.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Three Palestinian students from Gaza made a personal appeal to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday to allow them to study at American universities after their student visas were revoked.
A U.S. diplomat said this week that visas for the three, who won prestigious Fulbright scholarships, were withdrawn after "new information" was received about them.
Rice had previously championed efforts by the three Gaza residents to secure exit permits from Israel, which maintains a tight blockade on the Hamas-controlled territory.
"We were very disappointed to hear that after all of your efforts ... our visas were revoked due to 'undisclosed security concerns'. We do not understand why, and we do not understand what changed," Zohair Abu Shaban, Fidaa Abed and Osama Dawoud wrote in their letter to Rice.
The three received visas after being interviewed and fingerprinted by U.S. consular officials last month at Erez, a passenger terminal on Gaza's border with Israel.
"They gave us the visas on July 30 and two days later we were told the visas were not valid," Shaban, who wants to pursue a second degree in electrical engineering, told Reuters.
"It was a great shock. We had hoped to complete our studies, especially after we were granted the visas. We were packing our bags."
Shaban said Abed had flown to the United States via Jordan, only to be turned back at the airport.
The three were among seven Gazans awarded Fulbright scholarships this year. The U.S. government at first withdrew them because Israel did not grant the Palestinians exit permits.
Following media reports on the case, the Fulbrights were restored and the United States formally asked Israel to allow the scholars to leave Gaza.
Israel let four of the seven students travel to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem for visa interviews but, citing security concerns, denied permits to Shaban, Abed and Daoud.
The U.S. consulate official said another Palestinian who planned to study under a different programme in the United States had also had his visa revoked. All four students could reapply at a later date, the U.S. official said.
"We also want to ask for your intervention on behalf of our colleagues whose requests to leave the Gaza Strip in order to reach their studies abroad are not even being reviewed by Israel -- they are automatically rejected," the three wrote. (Writing by Ori Lewis and Dan Williams; editing by Andrew Roche)
