U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will depart Saturday (September 13, 2025) on a visit to Israel to offer support earlier than French-led strikes to recognise a Palestinian state, the State Department stated.
Mr. Rubio goes forward with the go to despite U.S. President Donald Trump gently reprimanding Israel for a shock assault on Hamas on Tuesday in Qatar, a key U.S. accomplice.
Mr. Rubio will communicate to Israeli leaders about “our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions, including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott stated in a press release.
Mr. Rubio will emphasize “the U.S. commitment to Israeli security,” Mr. Pigott stated.
“He will also emphasise our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home,” he stated, including that Mr. Rubio will meet households of hostages.
He stated that Mr. Rubio would focus on Israel’s “operational goals and objectives” in its new offensive, which features a aim of seizing the already rubble-strewn territory’s foremost city hub of Gaza City.
The assertion made no point out of the strikes in Qatar, though Rubio on Friday will meet in Washington with the Gulf state’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
Israel on Tuesday carried out strikes on Hamas management in Qatar, which has served as a key middleman with Hamas, whose leaders have been gathering to focus on a brand new ceasefire proposal put ahead by the Trump administration.
Mr. Trump referred to as the assault unlucky and stated that the United States came upon too late to cease it.
Quiet on settlements
Mr. Trump has repeatedly supplied sturdy backing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, removing many of the public considerations, nonetheless cautiously expressed, of his predecessor Joe Biden.
The State Department didn’t instantly affirm stories that Mr. Rubio would participate within the inauguration of a brand new tunnel in Jerusalem’s Old City for guests approaching the Temple Mount, the holiest web site for Jews, which can be sacred for Muslims because the Al-Aqsa compound.
“Rubio’s visit is nothing less than American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the most sensitive part of Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, contradicting Washington’s long-standing position since 1967,” anti-settlement advocacy group Peace Now stated in a press release.
Israel seized East Jerusalem within the 1967 battle and later annexed it and declared Jerusalem its indivisible capital, a step not acknowledged by many of the world.
But Mr. Trump throughout his first time period bucked the worldwide consensus and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
The Trump administration has declined to criticise ramped-up Israeli settlement exercise within the West Bank. Mr. Netanyahu vowed Thursday there can be no Palestinian state and “this place belongs to us” at a signing ceremony for a significant settlement venture.
But Mr. Netanyahu has walked again from far-right requires a large annexation of the West Bank after warnings by the United Arab Emirates, which took the landmark step 5 years in the past of normalizing with Israel.
Israel launched an all-out offensive in Gaza in October 2023 following an enormous assault launched from territory by Hamas that resulted within the deaths of 1,219 folks, largely civilians, in accordance to an AFP tally based mostly on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed greater than 64,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in accordance to figures from the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers dependable.
The UN has declared famine in elements of Gaza, which Israel contests.
