Israel has insisted it will continue its military objective of wiping out Hamas once the pause in fighting has ended following the release of hostages taken by the terrorist group during its Oct. 7 attack.
Although Hamas is likely to plead to the international community to pressure Israel to retreat from its objective because it gave up hostages, Fred Fleitz told Newsmax on Monday he hopes the Biden administration continues to stand with the Jewish state.
"There are signs that Hamas is going to try to spin their willingness to give up their hostages as a sign of goodwill," Fleitz, vice chair of the America First Policy Institute, told "Newsline." "I've heard from the Arab media that Hamas thinks that it will be part of a new governing coalition in Gaza. It's using this to generate goodwill.
"Israel is not going to agree to that, and I hope the U.S. will take a very strong stance.
"Hamas must be destroyed. It doesn't matter that it's giving up these hostages, and Israel has to push forward with its offensive operation."
Hamas has not abided by conditions of the pause in fighting to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all the hostages so they can verify their health and the numbers of those being held. Abigail Edan, 4, is the only American hostage who has been released and the Biden administration said it has no idea on the status of the other Americans who are being held.
"It's very frustrating," Fleitz said. "The Israeli government and the American government can't get straight answers on questions like that."
Fleitz said he's happy that more than 50 hostages have been returned to Israel, even though Israel has had to give up more than 100 prisoners in exchange and allowed aid to flow into the Gaza Strip, aid likely to go directly to Hamas.
"We're negotiating with her terrorists, were negotiating with evil," Fleitz, a former chief of staff in the National Security Council in the Trump administration. "We're putting them in a bargaining position, and you know what's going on right now. These tunnels were becoming largely inoperable because of a lack of fuel to run the air-handling units and the electricity and the fans. Now Hamas has this fuel. It's allowing them to use tunnels that they weren't using before to make them more active.
"Hamas is taking advantage of the ceasefire. I'm happy. We're getting these hostages out, but there's a very heavy price to pay."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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