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US secretary of state Marco Rubio met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday in the wake of Israel’s unprecedented strike on a Hamas meeting in Qatar, a key US ally in the region.
Rubio told reporters before leaving for Israel that Donald Trump was “not happy” with the brazen Israeli strike on Doha, but added that US-Israel ties would “remain strong”.
“What’s happened has happened. Obviously we’re not happy about it . . . now we need to move forward and figure out what comes next,” Rubio said at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Saturday.
He added that “it’s not going to change the nature of our relationship with the Israelis”.
Israeli jets struck the Hamas headquarters in Doha last Tuesday, killing five low-ranking officials from the group and a Qatari security officer. Hamas denied that any of its senior leaders were harmed.
Israel has yet to officially comment on the results of the strike, but there is a growing sense among Israeli officials and security analysts that the unprecedented assault on a major non-Nato US ally did not achieve its aims.
Rubio and Trump both met Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in New York on Friday.
On Sunday Rubio visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, alongside Netanyahu.
Rubio was also expected to meet with senior officials and to visit the nearby City of David archaeological site in East Jerusalem, a controversial location in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan, which has in recent years increasingly been populated by Israeli Jewish settlers.
Rubio dismissed concerns raised by reporters about the visit. “It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. I’ve visited it numerous times in the past,” he said.
“I understand people want to involve politics in it. I understand everything in this region is political to some extent.”
The top US envoy is also expected to discuss Israel’s next steps in the war with Hamas in Gaza, as Israel escalates its air offensive on Gaza City ahead of a threatened ground assault.
A plume of smoke is seen after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Sunday © Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters
Israel’s military has called for the entire civilian population to evacuate southwards within the devastated enclave. Over the past week Israeli strikes have destroyed multiple high-rise buildings in the city, with the military saying they hosted Hamas observation posts.
Rubio told reporters that Trump wanted the war “to be finished with”. Trump “wants Hamas defeated, he wants the war to end, he wants all 48 [Israeli] hostages home, including those that are deceased, and he wants it all at once”, Rubio said.
“And we’ll have to discuss about how the events last week had an impact on the ability to achieve that in short order.”
Ahead of the attack on its Doha headquarters, Hamas leaders are believed to have convened there to discuss the latest US ceasefire proposal, which closely matched demands made by Netanyahu that the militant group releases all the hostages it holds in Gaza and lays down its weapons.
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Hamas has consistently said it will release the hostages only if Israel commits to fully ending the war and withdrawing from Gaza.
Israeli media also reported that Rubio and Netanyahu would discuss the public push by several far-right Israeli ministers to annex swaths of the occupied West Bank, nominally in retaliation for an upcoming drive at the UN General Assembly to recognise Palestinian statehood.
It remains unclear whether the Trump administration will support the annexation. Senior US officials, including Rubio, had previously blamed the potential seizure of the West Bank land on the Palestinian side and western governments, including the UK, France and Australia, that are set to recognise the state of Palestine.