'We share the goal of stability': Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered relatively restrained remarks on Tuesday in response to western allies announcing a slew of unprecedented punitive moves against Israel, adding only that the US will not follow suit. "We were made aware that they were going to make this decision," Rubio told reporters while on a trip to Colombia. "We heard their argument as to why, but look, we share the goal of stability. We don't want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time. In the region, there's always tenuous times." A Bloomberg report on Tuesday revealed that UK diplomats privately told their US counterparts ahead of the announcement that the new sanctions are largely symbolic and lack tangible impact. The UK, in coordination with France and Canada on Tuesday, recognised the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, but not in Gaza, where more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. Read more: 'We share the goal of stability': Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian man after they carried out a raid on homes in Anata, in the occupied West Bank, on 8 September 2026 (Ammar Awad/Reuters)