US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that while the Trump administration wants to “do everything [it] can to be helpful on the humanitarian problem” in Gaza, the starvation crisis there should not overshadow the plight of the Israeli captives, Al Jazeera reports.

“Not enough attention [is] being paid to the fact that 20 people [who] had nothing to do with this are being held hostage in tunnels on the verge of death, and no real talk about how Hamas needs to be disarmed and disbanded,” he told US broadcaster Fox News.

“As long as Hamas exists as an armed group in Gaza, there will not be peace, there will not be a peaceful future – because it’s going to happen again. And this can never happen again,” Rubio added.