WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will leave Saturday on a trip to Israel to offer support before French-led moves to recognize a Palestinian state, the State Department said.
Rubio is going ahead with the visit despite President Donald Trump gently reprimanding Israel for a surprise attack on Hamas on Tuesday in Qatar, a key US partner.
Rubio will speak 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 said in a statement.
Rubio will emphasize “the US commitment to Israeli security,“ Pigott said.
“He will also emphasize our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home,“ he said, adding that Rubio will meet families of hostages.
He said that Rubio would discuss Israel’s “operational goals and objectives” in its new offensive which includes a goal of seizing the already rubble-strewn territory’s main urban hub of Gaza City.
The statement made no mention of the strikes in Qatar, although 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 leadership in Qatar, which has served as a key intermediary with Hamas, whose leaders were gathering to discuss a new ceasefire proposal put forward by the Trump administration.
Trump called the attack unfortunate and said that the United States found out too late to stop it.
Quiet on settlements
Trump has repeatedly offered strong backing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, doing away with most of the public concerns, however cautiously expressed, of his predecessor Joe Biden.
The State Department did not immediately confirm reports that Rubio would take part in the inauguration of a new tunnel in Jerusalem’s Old City for visitors approaching the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, which is also sacred for Muslims as 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 said in a statement.
Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later annexed it and declared Jerusalem its indivisible capital, a step not recognized by most of the world.
But Trump during his first term bucked the international consensus and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.
The Trump administration has declined to criticize ramped-up Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. Netanyahu vowed Thursday there would be no Palestinian state and “this place belongs to us” at a signing ceremony for a major settlement project.
But Netanyahu has walked back from far-right calls for a wide annexation of the West Bank after warnings by the United Arab Emirates, which took the landmark step five years ago of normalizing with Israel.
Israel launched an all-out offensive in Gaza in October 2023 following a massive attack launched from territory by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
The UN has declared famine in parts of Gaza, which Israel contests. – AFP
