Four Gaza students get US visas

Four Fulbrighters were allowed to leave Gaza, but three were not

Israel has allowed four Palestinian students to leave the Gaza Strip to apply for US visas so they can take up prestigious Fulbright scholarships.

The four are among seven students whom the Israelis had been preventing from leaving Gaza - a move which led the US to briefly cancel the scholarships.

The remaining three students have not yet been allowed to leave Gaza.

Israel has been tightly blockading Gaza since the Islamist group, Hamas, seized control there a year ago.

Very few Palestinians have been granted exit permits since then.

After leaving Gaza, a US diplomatic car picked up the students and took them to east Jerusalem where the US Consulate is situated.

Two of the Fulbright scholars had not received Israeli permits to leave Gaza on security grounds, reports say.

A seventh went to the Erez crossing but was sent back by the Israeli authorities. Israeli officials would not comment.

The Israeli-US dispute over exit permits for the scholars has ruffled the usually smooth ties between the close allies.

"If you cannot engage young people and give complete horizons to their expectations and their dreams, I don't know that there would be any future for Palestine," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week.

Israeli officials said the US had not asked for exemptions from the strict blockade on Gaza for the scholars.

Israel's supreme court said the policy of preventing students leaving Gaza was harming prospects for future coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.