The U.S. State Department said Saturday that it has halted the issuance of all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducts “a full and thorough review” of how a small number of recent medical-humanitarian visas were granted. The decision, announced on the department’s official social-media account, immediately pauses travel for Gazans holding or seeking the short-term B1/B2 documents often used for medical treatment in the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the suspension follows inquiries from several members of Congress and unspecified evidence suggesting some nonprofit groups facilitating the travel have links to Hamas. “We are going to pause those visas and re-evaluate how they are being vetted,” Rubio said, without detailing either the evidence or a timeline for completing the review. The move came a day after conservative activist Laura Loomer circulated videos of wounded Palestinian children arriving in San Francisco and Houston for surgery, triggering criticism from right-wing commentators and some lawmakers. The State Department has not said whether Loomer’s posts influenced its decision, and it declined to specify how many Gazans were affected. Human-rights and medical charities condemned the freeze. HEAL Palestine, which has flown more than a dozen severely injured children to the United States this month, said the program is strictly for temporary treatment and that patients return to the Middle East after care. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund warned the halt could endanger young patients, citing World Health Organization data showing about 14,800 Gazans still require life-saving procedures unavailable at home. According to State Department statistics, Washington issued 3,800 B1/B2 visas to holders of Palestinian Authority travel documents between January and May, including 640 in May alone. Officials have not indicated when the current review will conclude or whether exceptions will be made for urgent medical cases.