Rubio to supply Israel assist regardless of Qatar strike

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will depart Saturday (September 13, 2025) on a visit to Israel to supply assist earlier than French-led strikes to recognise a Palestinian state, the State Department mentioned.

Mr. Rubio goes forward with the go to regardless of 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 converse 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 mentioned in an announcement.

Mr. Rubio will emphasize “the U.S. commitment to Israeli security,” Mr. Pigott mentioned.

“He will also emphasise our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home,” he mentioned, including that Mr. Rubio will meet households of hostages.

He mentioned that Mr. Rubio would talk about 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 had been gathering to debate a brand new ceasefire proposal put ahead by the Trump administration.

Mr. Trump referred to as the assault unlucky and mentioned that the United States discovered too late to cease it.

Quiet on settlements

Mr. Trump has repeatedly supplied sturdy backing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, eliminating a lot of the public considerations, nevertheless cautiously expressed, of his predecessor Joe Biden.

The State Department didn’t instantly affirm experiences 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 website 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 mentioned in an announcement.

Israel seized East Jerusalem within the 1967 struggle and later annexed it and declared Jerusalem its indivisible capital, a step not acknowledged by a lot 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 serious settlement mission.

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 keeping with an AFP tally primarily based on Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed greater than 64,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in keeping with figures from the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers dependable.

The UN has declared famine in components of Gaza, which Israel contests.