Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters onboard his flight to Saudi Arabia Monday that envoy Adam Boehler’s direct meetings with Hamas on the release of hostages in Gaza was a “one-off situation” and as of now “hasn’t borne fruit.”
Rubio was asked to respond to Israel’s cutting off aid and electricity to Gaza, and responded: “Well, again, they feel like Hamas is not serious about negotiations. They are still holding hostages and bodies in terrible conditions. They are insisting on these dramatically lopsided trades of hundreds of people for one or two. The President expressed his frustration about it as well. So, the Israelis are going to do what they believe is in their interests to sort of force Hamas to make decisions.”
He added, “As I said, Mr. Witkoff is heading to Qatar, and hopefully that’ll bear fruit and all of these hostages will be released. They should all be released. They should all be released.”
Secretary Rubio was on his way to meet Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss repairing relations between Washington and Kiev and assessing Ukraine’s willingness to make concessions to swiftly end the war with Russia.
Since taking office in January, Trump has engaged directly with Moscow, halted military aid to Kiev, and suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
Rubio was asked by a reporter, “Do you anticipate any more direct contact, direct communications with Hamas?”
He responded: “Well, that was a one-off situation in which our special envoy for hostages, whose job it is to get people released, had an opportunity to talk directly to someone who has control over these people and was given permission and encouraged to do so. He did so; as of now, it hasn’t borne fruit. But it was – doesn’t mean he was wrong to try. But our primary vehicle for negotiations on this front will continue to be Mr. Witkoff and the work he’s doing through Qatar.”
Asked, “Do you expect those conversations with Hamas on a one-on-one basis to potentially continue, or was that one-off, no more?”
Rubio answered, “As of now that was just the one – when you’re in the world of getting hostages released, you end up running into all kinds of people around the world. Mr. Boehler, who’s fantastic at what he does and has already had tremendous success in getting people released around the world – including some that have been underreported like in Belarus, where they were unilaterally released without any sort of concessions – had an opportunity to meet somewhere with someone linked to Hamas, and it was an opportunity he pursued to see if something could come of it. As of now, nothing’s come of it.”
The mainstream media in Israel, which is enlisted in the effort to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, celebrated the fact that the Americans bypassed Israel to conduct direct talks with Hamas. It was in keeping with Israeli leftists’ strategy of reciting Hamas talking points as a matter of course, and rejoicing shamelessly whenever their government appears to hit a snag. Now, that President Trump’s Secretary of State has explained the unusual move and declared it would not be repeated, there is no joy in Mudville.
