Rubio in Israel Says Hamas Must Be Eradicated, Casting Further Doubt on Gaza’s Shaky Ceasefire

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement to the media at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem on February 16, 2025. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement to the media at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem on February 16, 2025. (AFP)
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Rubio in Israel Says Hamas Must Be Eradicated, Casting Further Doubt on Gaza’s Shaky Ceasefire

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement to the media at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem on February 16, 2025. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement to the media at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem on February 16, 2025. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday fully endorsed Israel's war aims in the Gaza Strip, saying Hamas "must be eradicated" and throwing the shaky ceasefire into further doubt.

Rubio met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem at the start of a regional tour, where he is likely to face pushback from Arab leaders over President Donald Trump's proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza and redevelop it under US ownership.

Netanyahu has welcomed the plan, and said he and Trump have a "common strategy" for Gaza's future. Echoing Trump, he said "the gates of hell would be open" if Hamas does not release dozens of remaining hostages abducted in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the 16-month war.

Their remarks came two weeks before the ceasefire's first phase is set to end. The second phase, in which Hamas is to release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, has yet to be negotiated.

Rubio said Hamas cannot continue as a military or government force. "As long as it stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible," he said. "It must be eradicated."

Such language could complicate continued talks with Hamas, which remains in control of Gaza despite suffering heavy losses in the war.

The Israeli military meanwhile said it carried out an airstrike Sunday on people who approached its forces in southern Gaza. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the strike killed three of its policemen while they were securing the entry of aid trucks near Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

Hamas called the attack a "serious violation" of the ceasefire and accused Netanyahu of trying to sabotage the deal.

Readiness to resume war

Resuming the war could be a death sentence for the remaining hostages and may not succeed in eliminating Hamas, which reasserted control over Gaza when the ceasefire took hold last month.

Netanyahu has signaled readiness to resume the war after the current phase and has offered Hamas a chance to surrender and send its top leaders into exile.

Hamas has rejected such a scenario, and spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou told The Associated Press the group accepts either a Palestinian unity government or a technocratic committee to run Gaza. The group insists on Palestinian rule.

Hamas last week threatened to hold up the latest release of hostages because Netanyahu has yet to approve the entry of mobile homes and heavy machinery into Gaza as required by the ceasefire agreement, before proceeding with the release Saturday based on what it called assurances from Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the issue would be discussed in the coming days and that Israel was coordinating with the United States.

In another sign of the allies closing ranks, Israel's Defense Ministry said it received a shipment of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) MK-84 munitions from the United States. The Biden administration had paused a shipment of such bombs last year over concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza.

Rubio was not scheduled to meet with Palestinians on his Mideast trip.

Egypt will host an Arab summit on Feb. 27 and is working with other countries on a counterproposal that would allow for Gaza to be rebuilt without removing its population. Human rights groups say the expulsion of Palestinians would likely violate international law.

Egypt has warned that any mass influx of Palestinians from Gaza would undermine its nearly half-century peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of US influence in the region.

"The continuation of the conflict and broadening its scope will harm all parties without exception," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Sunday, according to a statement from his office.

Arab and Muslim countries have conditioned any support for postwar Gaza on a return to Palestinian governance with a pathway to statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel has ruled out a Palestinian state and any role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority, whose forces were driven out when Hamas seized power there in 2007.



Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas's armed wing released a video on Saturday showing two Israeli hostages alive in the Gaza Strip, with one of the two men calling to end the 19-month-long war.

Israeli media identified the pair in the undated video as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana, who were kidnapped during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

The three-minute video released by Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades shows one of the hostages, identified by media as 36-year-old Bohbot, visibly weak and lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.

Bohbot, a Colombian-Israeli, was seen bound and injured in the face in video footage from the day of the Hamas attack. After a video of him was released last month, his family said they were "extremely concerned" about his health.

The second hostage, said to be Ohana, 24, speaks in Hebrew in the video, urging the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of all remaining captives -- a similar message to statements made by other hostages, likely under duress, in previous videos released by Hamas.

Bohbot and Ohana, both abducted by Palestinian gunmen from the site of a music festival, are among 58 hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas also holds the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a 2014 war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the fate of three hostages presumed alive was unclear, without naming them.

"We know with certainty that 21 hostages are alive... and there are three others whose status, sadly, we do not know," Netanyahu said in a video shared on his Telegram channel.

Israel resumed its military offensive across the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce that saw the release of dozens of hostages.

Since the ceasefire collapsed, Hamas has released several videos of hostages, including of the two appearing in Saturday's video.

Israel says the renewed offensive aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.

Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 2,701 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,810.