Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on “Fox News Sunday” with guest host Gillian Turner to discuss the hostages that are still in Gaza under the terror group Hamas.
“On Monday, President Trump gave Hamas a deadline of 6pm tonight to accept all 20 points of his proposed plan. Then Friday, Hamas came forward and said well, we accept one. Are you concerned at all that this is a play for more time? A stalling tactic?” Turner asked.
“I don’t think that’s an accurate, a fairly inaccurate description of what’s happened here. Two, the way to think about this is two-fold. Number one, is Hamas has accepted the entire construct of President Trump’s proposal for releasing the hostages. That’s number one, ok. Forty-eight, twenty that are alive, twenty-eight that are deceased,” Rubio said.
“There is talks ongoing which will hopefully be finalized very quickly on the logistics of that. You know, who’s going to go in, what time are they gonna be released, how’s all that going to work,” Rubio continued.
“The second part of this, and it’s gonna be a much tougher part of it is, what happens after that. Whose gonna run Gaza
moving forward? It can’t be Hamas, it can’t be a terrorist organization,” Rubio said.
Secretary Rubio also explained that ridding Gaza of terrorists is part of a long-term solution to stabilize Gaza.
“Ultimately, that is what permanent peace is going to be dependent upon, and that is that Gaza is no longer controlled by a terrorist organization like Hamas,” Rubio explained.
“The top priority first and foremost is all forty-eight hostages being released as soon as possible,” Rubio said.
“It seems like a bitter pill for the Israelis to swallow,” Turner commenting on the unfair release of Palestinian terrorists to get back hostages.
Secretary Rubio explained that often times in getting hostages returned unfortunately results in an unfair deal which has often included releasing terrorists that have been captured by the country of origin where the hostages are from.
“As unfair, as unjust and as unbalanced as a deal like that may be, that is how important life is to them,” Rubio explained.
“And it all happened because President Trump put that on the table and built this international coalition, including Arab and Islamic countries. Without him putting that together, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now,” Rubio crediting President Trump.
Watch:
WATCH: @SecRubio on where the Israel-Hamas peace deal stands: “I think that we are the closest we have been in a very long time to having no hostages held by Hamas.” pic.twitter.com/qHZBlO9yTX
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) October 5, 2025