Rubio Heads to a Defiant Israel After Qatar Strike

The diplomat will consult with Israeli officials about their coming military offensive in Gaza City, as President Trump’s efforts to end the Gaza war appear stalled.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio departed for Israel on Saturday amid signs that President Trump was growing frustrated about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unrelenting campaign against Hamas prolonging the war in Gaza.

Mr. Rubio will land in Israel on Sunday as its military prepares for a major offensive in Gaza City. His visit comes days after an audacious Israeli airstrike targeted Hamas officials in Qatar. Arab and European officials have said that the attack would make ending the conflict even harder.

Before his departure on Saturday, Mr. Rubio told reporters that the Israeli strike in Qatar would be a focus of his conversations in Israel, and “what impact it’s going to have on efforts to get all the hostages back, get rid of Hamas and end this war. That’s the president’s priority.”

Mr. Trump told reporters this week that he was “very unhappy” about the Israeli strike in Doha, Qatar’s capital, saying that it “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”

Mr. Trump has promised to broker an end to the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, and earlier this month submitted a fresh cease-fire proposal, which he said Israel had accepted.

But the fighting has raged on. For that, Mr. Trump and Israel blame Hamas, saying that the Palestinian militant group negotiates in bad faith. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics say he has willingly prolonged the war, prioritizing the dismantling of Hamas over the release of some 20 Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza.

Mr. Trump has done little to press Mr. Netanyahu to reach terms with Hamas, apart from his sporadic demands that Israel allow more aid into Gaza to prevent mass famine.

A State Department statement announcing Mr. Rubio’s travel and outlining his agenda did not express concern about the coming Israeli offensive into Gaza City, ahead of which Israel has ordered all residents to evacuate. The statement said that Mr. Rubio, who also serves as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, would meet with Israeli officials to discuss their “goals and objectives” for the operation.

Mr. Rubio deflected on Saturday when asked whether the United States fully supports an offensive into Gaza City. “I’m not going to get into that in the media, other than to say that the president wants this to be finished with,” he said, referring to the Gaza war generally.

But Mr. Rubio may urge Israel to conduct a swift operation, said David Makovsky, a former State Department adviser who advised Israel-Palestinian peace talks and now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The country could then move toward the political settlement that Mr. Trump, who does not conceal his longing for a Nobel Peace Prize, hopes to clinch.

“I tend to think his time frame is to do it quickly,” Mr. Makovsky said. But he added that a U.S. push to “get it over with” may not “comport with the reality on the ground” — the prospect of grueling urban warfare in the devastated Gazan capital.

It is unclear whether Mr. Rubio will rebuke Israeli officials over the strike in Qatar, a close U.S. partner that hosts a major American air base. On Friday, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain issued a joint statement condemning the attack as a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty, and said it “poses a serious risk to achieving a negotiated deal” to end the Gaza war.

But such differences between the Trump administration and Mr. Netanyahu appear largely tactical. And in the swelling international debate about Israel’s approach to the Palestinians, Mr. Rubio appears sure to defend Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government.

Calls for recognizing a Palestinian state are growing in major Western capitals, which, like the United States, have long held that statehood can only result from mutual agreement by Israel. But several countries, including France and Canada, said in July that they would recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month.

While such recognition would be symbolic, the idea infuriates Israeli officials, who say it amounts to a reward for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Trump administration officials have also denounced the move. (Even Mr. Rubio’s predecessor as secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, wrote last month that the idea was “morally right” but premature as a practical matter.)

In a ceremony on Thursday celebrating new Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Mr. Netanyahu defiantly insisted that such a state, whose creation would almost certainly require territorial concessions by Israel, would never become reality.

“We said there will be no Palestinian state — and indeed there will be no Palestinian state!” the Israeli leader declared. “This place is ours.”

During his visit, Mr. Rubio will reiterate the Trump administration’s “commitment to fight anti-Israel actions, including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism,” the State Department’s statement said.

While Mr. Trump’s support for Mr. Netanyahu has come at little political cost, that could change. The length and human toll of the Gaza war, as well as the airstrike in Qatar, have put severe pressure on Israel’s alliances with Gulf Arab states. So has growing talk among Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing allies about annexing the West Bank.

Arab officials have warned that Mr. Netanyahu’s actions are threatening the Abraham Accords — agreements brokered by Mr. Trump in his first term that established formal diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Rubio’s meetings in Israel will be on Monday, the five-year anniversary of the accords.

Mr. Trump claims the Abraham Accords as one of his proudest achievements, and he hopes to extend them to include Saudi Arabia. Analysts say there is little chance of that happening anytime soon, and warn that the existing accords could themselves be in danger.

Earlier this month, a top Emirati official said that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank would be a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration," in what some analysts read as an implicit reference to a potential withdrawal from the accords.

It is unclear how those tensions might be resolved, according to Mr. Makovsky, the former State Department official.

“I’m just concerned that we’re entering this escalatory phase right now, and we don’t know the end,” he said. “There’s no off ramp.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s approach, he added, “is to just keep going.”

Related Content