With Phase 2 of President Donald Trump’s peace agreement upon us, all Hamas-held hostages have been return with the exception of one person’s remains.
American Jewish Committee reports only the late Israeli police officer Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili remains held by Hamas.
The remaining 20 surviving hostages were released on Oct. 13.
The war began in a surprise attack from Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 and taking roughly 250 hostages, according to reports.
Next steps in the agreement would involve the disarmament of Hamas. While there’s great skepticism the terror group will actually comply, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, believes disarmament is coming.
“I think they will, because President Trump promised they would, and he's pretty good at keeping his promises,” Huckabeee said on Washington Watch.
He compares Hamas’ situation to Iran in the days before Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S.-led bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in late June.
“If they think that they can wait him out, they're probably making as big a mistake as Iran did when Iran thought that he wasn't serious when he told them they couldn't have a nuclear weapon and that they weren't going to enrich uranium,” Huckabee told show host Tony Perkins over the weekend.
The disarming of Hamas is the single-most difficult part of the peace agreement, Huckabee conceded.
Hamas, though, is facing pressure from the agreement’s co-signers – its neighbors, the Arab nations who “signed on to a commitment that Hamas would be disarmed and would be expelled and moved out of Gaza.”
Hamas these days has been more or less quarantined within Gaza. It retains its weapons. Its strongholds within the country have not been eliminated but have become fewer in number.
The western front of Gaza facing the Mediterranean – in an around Gaza City and Khan Yunis -- is still an area of Hamas strength.
The eastern part of Gaza down to the South, near Rafah has “pretty well been demilitarized. The Israelis have control of it now,” Huckabee said.
The Israelis have no desire to be in any parts of Gaza long-term, Huckabee said.
But the job of eradicating Hamas is not complete and at some point will again require armed conflict, Huckabee predicts.
“It is going to take some combinations of deprivation of resources getting to Hamas. Those are under way. Then at some point it probably will require kinetic action on the part of a police or military force,” he said.
“As President Trump has said to (Hamas), we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Huckabee said.
