Netanyahu says US alliance ‘has never been stronger’ as Rubio visits
AFP | Jerusalem
Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that a visit to Israel by top US diplomat Marco Rubio underscored the strength of ties between the allies.
US leader Donald Trump has rebuked Israel over Tuesday’s strike, and Rubio acknowledged to reporters before departing Washington that the president was “not happy” about it, but he insisted the attack would not “change the nature of our relationship with the Israelis”.
Nevertheless, the strike has put renewed strain on efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, and Rubio allowed that the United States and Israel were “going to have to talk about” its impact.
Netanyahu has defended the operation -- which targeted Hamas officials gathering to discuss a new US ceasefire proposal -- saying killing the group’s leaders would remove the “main obstacle” to ending the Gaza war.
On Sunday, Rubio offered prayers at Jerusalem’s sacred Western Wall alongside Netanyahu and US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an AFP correspondent reported.
Netanyahu said afterwards that the visit showed the Israeli-American alliance was “as strong, as durable as the stones in the Western Wall that we just touched”.
Under Rubio and President Donald Trump, “the alliance has never been stronger”, he added.
Rubio’s main meetings with officials, including Netanyahu, will take place on Monday before he departs on Tuesday.
38 killed
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 38 people had been killed since dawn Sunday in Israeli strikes around the territory.
On Friday, the UN General Assembly voted to back a revival of the two-state solution, in defiance of Israeli opposition.
Nevertheless, Israel retains the backing of its most powerful ally and biggest arms supplier, the United States.
Of the 251 people taken hostage by Palestinian group in October 2023, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 64,871 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
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