US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a press conference on Friday that the United States will not commit to specific terms of a Hamas disarmament plan but emphasized that any arrangement must ensure the terror group cannot threaten Israel.
Asked whether Washington could accept Hamas’s reported willingness to surrender its heavy weapons while retaining lighter ones, Rubio said, “I’m not going to get into the details of those types of negotiations.”
“I would just ask everyone to focus on what are the kind of weapons [and] capabilities that Hamas would need in order to threaten or attack Israel as a baseline for what disarmament needs to look like,” he continued.
“If Hamas is ever in a position in the future that they can threaten or attack Israel, you’re not going to have peace,” Rubio warned. “You’re not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen in two, three years… That’s why disarmament is so critical.”
“What that entails, we’re going to leave that to the technical teams to work on,” he added. “It would have to be something that our partners can pressure them to agree to. It also has to be something that Israel agrees to for that to work.”
Rubio also addressed the planned International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza, saying the Trump administration must first clarify the mandate before seeking firm troop commitments.
“In fairness to all the countries we’ve talked to about having a presence on the ground, I think they want to know specifically what the mandate will be and what the funding mechanism,” he told reporters, when asked about reports of Pakistani participation.
“We’re very grateful to Pakistan for their offer to consider being a part of it, [but] I think we owe them a few more answers before we can ask anybody to firmly commit,” Rubio said.
He added that he feels “very confident that we have a number of nation states acceptable to all sides [that] are willing to step forward and be a part of that stabilization force,” despite reports that Washington is struggling to find contributors.
“We’re trying to make a lot of progress here,” he said. “The next step is announcing the Board of Peace, announcing the Palestinian technocratic [committee] that will help provide daily governance.”
“Once that’s in place, that will allow us to firm up the stabilization force, including how it’s going to be paid for, what the rules of engagement are, what their role will be in demilitarization and so forth,” Rubio added.
Turning to the northern front, Rubio expressed cautious optimism about talks between Israeli and Lebanese authorities, saying Washington hopes they “will create outlines and a way forward that prevents further conflict.”
He acknowledged that Israel has “pledged to continue taking military action against Hezbollah if it feels threatened.”
“We all would hope that we could avoid that… The best way to avoid it is to have a strong Lebanese government that can actually control the country, and [ensure] that Hezbollah is no longer an armed threat to Israel or to the Lebanese state,” he said.
“That’s what we’re committed to… achieve,” Rubio concluded. “I can’t speculate on what the talks will lead to, but we’ll do everything we can to make them productive.”
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)