{"id":475281,"date":"2026-06-04T04:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475281\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:31:12","slug":"after-gulf-attacks-rubio-faces-pushback-on-war-is-over-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475281\/","title":{"rendered":"After Gulf attacks, Rubio faces pushback on ‘war is over’ claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> clashed with lawmakers on Wednesday as he maintained that the US military operation against Iran had concluded despite continued attacks on both sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rubio addressed the House Foreign Affairs Committee a day after he told a Senate panel that \u201cthe war is over.\u201d On Wednesday, he said recent US strikes against Iran were \u201ccompletely defensive in nature\u201d and meant to protect commercial vessels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Operation] Epic Fury has concluded,\u201d Rubio said, using the codename for the coordinated US-Israeli operations against Iranian military infrastructure that began on Feb. 28.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don’t shoot at those ships, we don’t shoot, but we have to respond,\u201d he said, adding that Iran is primarily threatening commercial shipping with cheaply made, one-way attack drones.<\/p>\n

Rubio spoke as the region experienced some of its heaviest fighting since a ceasefire was reached in mid-April. US forces on Tuesday struck military ground control stations on Qeshm Island as well as an empty oil tanker they said was attempting to breach their blockade, prompting Iranian retaliation on two Gulf states that host American military bases.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least one person was killed and more than 60 people were injured in an Iranian drone attack that targeted Kuwait\u2019s international airport<\/a> on Wednesday, the country\u2019s Health Ministry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Kuwait attack came after Bahrain\u2019s military said on Wednesday that its air defenses successfully intercepted three Iranian missiles and \u201ca number of drones.\u201d Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted the headquarters of the US Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet in Bahrain as well as another country, without naming Kuwait.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rubio returned to Capitol Hill for a second day of hearings on the State Department\u2019s annual budget request, where lawmakers also challenged him on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as part of a preliminary deal with Iran<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s closure of the critical waterway has driven the US national average gasoline price up 50%, reaching $4.50 per gallon. In an interview with the New York Post published earlier Wednesday, President Donald Trump said it was possible that the retaliatory US naval blockade of Iranian ports could last until Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 7.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pressed by the committee\u2019s ranking member, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Rubio declined to give a direct yes-or-no answer on whether he had warned Trump that launching a war could lead Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz and drive up prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president and the full administration was aware that there would be consequences to action, but the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon were worse,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed with lawmakers on Wednesday as he maintained that the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-475281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}