JERUSALEM — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel on Sunday as its military intensified attacks on northern Gaza, flattening high-rise buildings and killing at least 13 Palestinians.
Rubio said ahead of the trip that he will be seeking answers from Israeli officials about how they see the way forward in Gaza following Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar last week that upended efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
His two-day visit is also a show of support for the increasingly isolated Israel as the United Nations holds what is expected to be a contentious debate next week on commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Qatar fallout
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite President Trump criticizing Netanyahu over the Israeli strike in Doha, of which he said the United States was not notified beforehand.
On Sunday, Netanyahu, Rubio and their wives, along with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife, toured the Western Wall and the excavated tunnels near it.
“I think [Rubio’s] visit here is a testament to the durability, the strength of the Israeli-American alliance. It’s as strong and as durable as the stones of the Western Wall we just touched,” Netanyahu said.
On Friday, Rubio and Trump met with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the fallout from the Israeli operation. The back-to-back meetings with Israel and Qatar illustrate how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies despite widespread international condemnation of the attack.
The Doha attack, which killed at least six people, also appears to have ended attempts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages ahead of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session, at which the Gaza war is expected to be a primary focus.
Meanwhile, foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic nations were to meet in Doha on Sunday to forge a united front about the Israeli attack ahead of a summit in Qatar on Monday that will bring together leaders from their nations for top-level talks.
Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday were also set to address a large bipartisan delegation of U.S. legislators visiting Israel for meetings and political discussions.
‘Our lives have become hell’
On Sunday, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, according to local hospitals.
One strike on a tent in the city of Deir al Balah killed at least six members of the same family. Two parents, their three children and the children’s aunt were killed, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital. The family was from the northern town of Beit Hanoun and arrived in Deir al Balah last week after fleeing a Gaza City shelter.
The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment.
Associated Press video showed what appeared to be thousands of people fleeing Gaza City on the seaside road to the south with their belongings packed on cars and lorries, as smoke rose from an airstrike some distance away. Israel has been warning residents to evacuate Gaza City as it expands its operation.
“We have begun to wish for death, death, rather than this life we live today,” said Ashraf Elwan, a young man displaced from Gaza City. “Our young men have had their limbs amputated, our women have become widows, our children have become orphans, our lives have become hell.”
The Israeli military destroyed three high-rise buildings Sunday after warning residents to evacuate. One building, part of the Islamic University in Gaza City, was struck twice and flattened. Al-Shifa Hospital reported casualties, but couldn’t confirm how many, saying some bodies remained trapped inside.
Before the strikes, residents scrambled to pull out belongings, tossing mattresses from balconies and wheeling away items, including suitcases.
The military said that Hamas had positioned observation points to gather intelligence about troop movements and that militants were poised to strike Israeli troops, although it offered no evidence to support those claims.
“This is part of the genocidal measures the [Israeli] occupation is carrying out in Gaza City,” said Abed Ismail, a Gaza City resident. “They want to turn the whole city into rubble, and force the transfer and another Naqba.”
“Naqba,” Arabic for catastrophe, refers to the removal of some 700,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel — fleeing their homes or expelled by Israeli forces — before and during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the state of Israel.
Israeli strongly denies accusations of genocide in Gaza.
Starvation in Gaza
Separately, two Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and starvation in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry reported Sunday.
That has brought the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 277 since late June, when the ministry started to count fatalities among this age category, while 145 more children died of malnutrition-related causes, the ministry said.
The Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza said that more than 1,200 trucks carrying aid, primarily food, entered Gaza over the last week. Aid workers say the aid that does get into Gaza is far too little and insufficient for the territory’s enormous needs. Much of it is also looted before it can reach the Palestinians in desperate need.
International teams also finished repair work on a water line from Israel to Gaza, one of three water lines between them, increasing the daily amount of water coming into Gaza from Israel to 3.7 million gallons, Israel said.
Since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza’s water access has been progressively limited. Parents and children often chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, abducting 251 people and killing about 1,200, mostly civilians. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 Israel believes are still alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,871 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been destroyed and around 90% of the territory’s 2 million Palestinians have been displaced, many of them multiple times.
Lee and Magdy write for the Associated Press and reported from Tel Aviv and Cairo, respectively. AP writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Eric Tucker in Washington and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.