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Secretary Rubio Speaks to the Press at Ben Gurion Airport, Sep. 15, 2025

September 15, 2025 · U.S. Department of State · 0:13:21

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to the press at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 15, 2025, during his Israel visit and before traveling on to Qatar (the State Department uploaded the remarks on September 16), according to the department’s broadcast.

His stated preference throughout was a negotiated end: “all the hostages being released, that leads to Hamas being disarmed and eliminated as a threat, and we think Qatar can play a very key role in that.” He said the United States wants Qatar to re-engage as mediator despite its anger over the previous week’s strike, that an enhanced defense cooperation agreement with Qatar is on the verge of finalizing, and that the President “wasn’t happy” about the strike but that the problems remain and must be fixed. The window, he warned, is short: Israeli operations in Gaza City had begun, and “we don’t have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks” for a deal in which Hamas demilitarizes, disbands and releases every hostage.

On West Bank annexation talk, he called it a counterreaction to other nations’ unilateral declarations of a Palestinian state — a reaction the United States warned those countries would come, and which he said emboldened Hamas and undermined negotiations. Asked about the previous day’s reporting on visa reviews of foreigners who spoke negatively about the assassinated Charlie Kirk, he broadened the point: the administration has been denying visas, and some will be revoked, because “if you’re a foreigner and you’re out there celebrating the assassination of someone… we don’t want you in the country. Why would we want to give a visa to someone who thinks it’s good that someone was murdered in the public square?”

Why it matters

The airport remarks capture the pre-ceasefire endgame as the Secretary stated it — days-to-weeks for a negotiated hostage-and-demilitarization deal, Qatar kept as mediator after the strike its soil absorbed, and the visa-denial policy on assassination celebrations stated in his own words at the same podium.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the September 15, 2025 positions as stated — a negotiated release of all hostages with Hamas disarmed as the preferred outcome within a days-to-weeks window, an enhanced defense cooperation agreement with Qatar near finalization, and visa denials under way for foreigners celebrating political assassination. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Secretary Rubio Remarks to Press” (official upload, embedded above; Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel). Remarks as delivered 2025-09-15; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store; full transcript at state.gov.