Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio warned Thursday that Israel’s push to annex parts of the occupied West Bank risks jeopardizing a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza.
His comments came as Israeli lawmakers advanced two bills paving the way for annexation, days after President Donald Trump secured a deal to end Israel’s two-year offensive following Hamas’s October 2023 attacks.
Rubio said annexation would be “threatening for the peace deal” and “counterproductive,” adding that Washington was concerned about escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Rubio, visiting Israel to support the ceasefire, followed Vice President JD Vance, who is still in Israel but expected to leave on Thursday. Vance said the road ahead is difficult:
We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel.
Under Trump’s 20-point peace plan, an international Arab- and Muslim-led force will oversee Gaza’s transition as Israeli troops withdraw, without U.S. boots on the ground.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced criticism from far-right Jewish allies for agreeing to the ceasefire before Hamas was destroyed, defended the truce as a “success” that “put the knife up to Hamas’s throat” while isolating the group regionally.
