JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel on Sunday as its military intensified attacks on northern Gaza, flattening multiple high-rise building 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.
Rubio visits Israel despite anger over Qatar attack
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite President Donald Trump’s anger at Netanyahu over the Israeli strike in Doha, which he said the United States was not notified of beforehand.
On Sunday, Netanyahu, Rubio and their wives, along with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife, toured the Western Wall and the excavated tunnels near it.
“I think his (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 dual, back-to-back meetings with Israel and Qatar illustrate how Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies despite the attack’s widespread international condemnation.
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 UN 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 were also set to address Monday a large bipartisan delegation of American legislators visiting Israel for meetings and political discussions.
Deadly airstrikes mount
On Sunday, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded in multiple Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Local hospitals said Israeli strikes targeted a vehicle near Shifa hospital and a roundabout in Gaza City, and a tent in the city of Deir Al-Balah that killed at least six members of the same family.
Two parents, their three children and the children’s aunt were killed in that strike, according to the Al-Aqsa hospital. The family was from the northern town of Beit Hanoun, and arrived in Deir Al-Balah last week after fleeing their shelter in Gaza City
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strikes.
As part of its expanding operation in Gaza City, the military destroyed multiple high-rise buildings Sunday, after warning residents to evacuate. Some were destroyed less than an hour after an evacuation order was posted online by the military spokesman Avichay Adraee.
The military said that Hamas had positioned observation posts and ways to gather intelligence about troop movement in the area, and that Hamas militants were poised to strike Israeli troops, though it provided no evidence to support those claims. The military also said that, in addition to advance warnings, it used precise munitions and aerial surveillance to reduce the chance of harm to civilians.
The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip systematically violate international law, brutally exploiting civilian infrastructure and the Gazan population as human shields for terrorist activities.
The IDF will continue to operate against the terrorist organizations
Residents said the Kauther tower in the Rimal neighborhood was flattened to the ground. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
“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 Nakba.”
The word Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe and refers to when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel, before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.
Israeli strongly denies accusations of genocide in Gaza.
“The skyline of Gaza is changing,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X along with footage of the strikes that destroyed one of the buildings.
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 another 145 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.
The Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza said that over 1,200 trucks carrying aid, primarily food, entered into Gaza over the past 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 from Israel to Gaza, increasing the daily amount of water coming into Gaza from Israel to 14,000 cubic meters (3.7 million gallons).
Over the 23 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza’s water access has been progressively limited and the strip is now enduring a second scorching summer in wartime. 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 some 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 completely destroyed and around 90 percent of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.