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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Israel and Arab states in mid-February, a State Department official said, making his first trip to the Middle East after a widely condemned proposal by President Donald Trump to displace Palestinians in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Rubio will travel to the Munich Security Conference and to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia from February 13-18, the senior State Department official said.
The US official said Rubio would discuss Gaza and the aftermath of the Oct 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel during the trip, and would pursue Trump’s approach of trying to disrupt the status quo in the region.
