Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been blocked from attending the UN General Assembly session in New York in September after his visa and those of 80 other Palestinian officials were revoked, the BBC reported, citing the US State Department.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Palestinian officials of undermining peace efforts and seeking "unilateral recognition of a putative Palestinian state". The decision to lift the visas was welcomed by Israel.
The ban comes as France is leading international efforts to recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN, a move that the Trump administration has opposed.
Abbas said he was surprised by the visa decision, which is in clear violation of international law and the UN Headquarters Agreement, especially since the State of Palestine is an observer member at the United Nations. He called on the United States to reverse the decision.
Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip for years. The Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, has struggled to govern in the face of rival factions and Jewish settlement expansion. Mahmoud Abbas is also the head of the PLO, the organization that represents the Palestinians in international forums.
In 1974, the UN voted to recognize the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" and it was granted observer status in the UN General Assembly, but not as a state. In 2012, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade that status, recognizing Palestine as a permanent non-member observer state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of a two-state solution, the long-standing international formula for resolving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It envisions the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. According to him, recognizing a Palestinian state would be tantamount to rewarding Hamas's monstrous terrorism.
The State of Palestine is currently recognized by 147 of the 193 UN member states.