From the Liveblog of
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Rubio: Hamas ‘agreed’ to hostage release framework, details being hammered out now
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Hamas has “agreed to the president’s hostage release framework.”
Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rubio says, “I’m not telling you here that these are people I trust 100% nor should we. But they have said basically that they agree to his proposal and the framework for releasing the hostages. That’s an enormous achievement. They’ve also agreed, in principle, in generality, to enter into this idea about what’s going to happen afterwards, the Palestinian technocrats, et cetera.”
“We will know very quickly whether Hamas is serious or not by how these technical talks go in terms of the logistics” of a potential hostage release, says Rubio.
Rubio says work to hammer out the details is already underway.
He says the US expects the hostage release to take place “as soon as possible.”
“But priority number one, the one that we think we can achieve something very quickly on hopefully, is the release of all of the hostages in exchange for Israel moving back to that yellow line, which is basically where they stood at the middle part of last month, or of August,” Rubio explains. “And that’s the one we’re focused on.”
The next phase of a potential agreement, hammering out the future governance of Gaza, is “even harder,” he says.
“What happens after Israel pulls back to the yellow line and potentially beyond that as this thing develops? How do you create this Palestinian, technocratic leadership that’s not Hamas, that’s not terrorists, and with the help of the international community? How do you disarm any sort of terrorist groups that are going to be building tunnels and conducting attacks against Israel? How do you get them to demobilize?”
Rubio refuses to say that the Palestinian Authority will eventually run Gaza, saying only that it “will be governed by a Palestinian, technocratic group that’s not Hamas, that are not terrorists, with the help and the assistance and the guidance of an international consortium like the Board of Peace.”
He also doesn’t commit to a Palestinian state.
“If there’s going to be a two-state solution, it has to be negotiated with Israel,” he says. “It has to make sure that Israel’s security is taken into account.”
“Israel has no interest in governing Gaza,” Rubio continues. “They want to turn it over to somebody, some organization that will govern it, that will not build tunnels and sponsor terrorism and come across the line and kidnap, rape, and murder Israelis. That’s who they want to turn it over to.”
The Times of Israel Community.