By IRNA,
Gaza City : The US government has taken Fulbright scholarships away from eight students in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, citing Israeli travel restrictions imposed on Gaza Strip, a US official said Friday.
Israel maintains tight control of the border with Gaza in such checkpoints as the Erez Crossing since December.
The scholarships, which bring international students to the United States to study at American universities, will be given to students in the West Bank, Stacey Barrios, a spokeswoman for the US Consulate in Tel Aviv said in a statement.
Barrios said the scholarships were taken away because of restrictions that the Israeli government placed on travel in and out of Gaza.
Israel maintains tight control of the border with Gaza and has imposed an embargo on the movement of people and goods since Hamas took over the territory last year.
US officials are pressing Israel to give exit visas to Palestinians who have won Fulbright scholarships, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Friday.
“We would think frankly that a decision to let people who have been vetted for what is perhaps the most prestigious foreign education program run by the United States, certainly the most prestigious one run by the US government — it ought to be falling off a log for them to do this,” Casey said.
“We certainly hope they will ultimately come forward with the necessary exit visas to be able to allow these individuals to go forward and continue on with their program.”
Fulbright winners need exit visas from Israel to go to the US Consulate for an interview and then to travel to the United States.
Barrios said earlier that neither the State Department-sponsored Fulbright program nor any other US government exchange program was being canceled for Gazans.
In a short letter from the consulate, the Gaza students were told that US government would “not be able to finalize” their scholarships for 2008 and that they would need to apply again if they wanted to be considered in 2009.