Benjamin Netanyahu and Marco Rubio affirm plans on Iran, Gaza

Israel and the United States are working in full cooperation on Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that also covered Iran and the Lebanon ceasefire.

Thanking Rubio for “unequivocal backing” for Israel’s policy in Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel and the United States, under President Donald Trump, shared a common strategy in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire is in effect between Israel and Hamas terrorists after 15 months of war.

“I want to assure everyone who’s now listening to us that President Trump and I are working in full cooperation and coordination between us,” he said.

Rubio said that he agreed with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran was the “single greatest source of instability of the region.”

In a press conference in Israel, Rubio said that there can not “be a nuclear Iran.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands as they make joint statements to the press at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, January 16, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)

Rubio’s trip to Israel, Middle East

Rubio arrived in Tel Aviv late on Saturday on his first visit to the Middle East.

The secretary landed in Israel as top US and Israeli officials worked to secure the release of the remaining six living hostages in phase one of the ceasefire deal.

Rubio’s visit to the Middle East has been in the works for at least a month. The State Department said he would go to the Munich Security Conference, then Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia from February 13-18.

Before the Saturday release of former hostages Alexander Sasha Troufanov, Sagui Dekel Chen, and Iair Horn, Trump said that if the hostages weren’t returned by 12 p.m. Saturday EST, 7 p.m. Israel Standard Time, then the US would “back” whatever decision Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made.

Amichai Stein contributed to this report.

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1730128020581377’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);