The United States pressed Israel on Friday to let seven Gaza Strip Palestinians travel to the United States to study on coveted U.S. government Fulbright fellowships and Israel said it was working on the issue, Reuters reported.
Israel tightened its cordon of the Gaza Strip after the Hamas Islamist group took over the coastal Mediterranean territory nearly a year ago and it gives few Palestinians, besides some who are gravely ill, permission to leave.
The U.S. State Department this week told the seven that their Fulbright grants had been withdrawn and it has taken steps to be able to direct the money to other Palestinians in the West Bank because of the trouble getting the exit visas from Gaza.
However, after The New York Times published a report on the issue on Friday, U.S. officials said they were redoubling their efforts to get the Israeli exit visas for the students.
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, spoke to the Israeli ambassador to the United States on Friday to emphasize the U.S. desire to see the matter resolved, the State Department said.
"Frankly, a decision to let people that have been vetted for what is perhaps the most prestigious foreign educational program run by the United States ... it ought to be falling off a log for them to be able to do this," said U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
"I expect that we'll have some positive outcome for this in the not-too-distant future," he told reporters.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said a few of the Fulbright students had recently left Gaza through the Erez crossing but Casey said he could not verify this. It was not immediately possible obtain independent confirmation.
"We're trying to get them out," Mekel said. "Obviously the situation, with Hamas shooting at the border crossings, it is not such an easy thing to do."
There are regular rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel and the Israeli government argues that its travel restrictions are designed to prevent suicide bombings or other attacks.
PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS
The State Department spokesman said the money for the Gaza residents had not been given to other students and that if the seven received their exit visas, they would be given the Fulbright fellowships.
Top U.S. officials appeared to have been taken by surprise by the incident and embarrassed that their initial efforts to get Israel to allow the students to leave had not worked.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested she disapproved of the move to reallocate the money for the seven Gaza students, who hope to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions in the fall.
"It was a surprise to me and I am definitely going to look into it," Rice said at a news conference with Iceland's Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Gisladottir in Reykjavik. "I am a huge supporter of Fulbrights."
Fulbright grants are the U.S. flagship program in international educational exchange and are used to help promote a better understanding of U.S. values abroad.
Rice is expected to return to the Middle East next month to continue the Bush administration's uphill push to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of the year.