Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas, said during an interview on Monday that Israel must go into Gaza and destroy the terrorist group.
While part of Hamas, Yousef, 45, became one of Israel’s top informants to prevent terrorist attacks. He worked for Israel’s Shin Bet security services for a decade from 1997 through 2007 and now lives in an undisclosed location in the United States.
During an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, Yousef was asked if he thought it was a good idea for Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to go into Gaza to root out Hamas after the Palestinian Islamic terrorist group murdered more than 1,400 people in Israel.
“Now it’s a wartime, unfortunately,” he said. “And this war, Israel did not start. Hamas started this war. And Hamas, in fact, in this equation, blood for money, they start a war every few years whenever they want money. You know, they shed children’s blood. This is their game. And this has to stop. This has to come to an end.”
“And unfortunately, the price is not going to be cheap,” he continued. “In fact, I feel very sorry for Israel that they have to go into Gaza, where there are booby traps all over the place and tunnels all over the place. I don’t know how many Israeli soldiers have to die in order to destroy Hamas.”
Yousef said that this would be the most complicated mission a modern military has had to face and encouraged Israel to take its time when prosecuting its ground campaign. He also urged the U.S. to send experienced special forces to help Israel.
Hamas “want[s] to establish an Islamic state on the rubble of the state of Israel,” he said. “They want to annihilate the Jewish people and the Jewish state. They want to kill everybody who supports Israel, then establish an Islamic state. But this is not the end because their ambition is global. They want to establish eventually an Islamic state, a global state.”
He said the worst thing the West could do would be to give Hamas anything it asks for because it further empowers the terrorist group. “I say that this is an ugly war,” he said. “Israel did not start it, but Israel will end it.”
When asked about sending humanitarian aid into Gaza, Yousef quickly shot down the idea, noting that the aid often falls into the hands of Hamas.
“The United States and Europe have been very generous with the Palestinian people. But their leadership steals the money all the time,” he said. “They steal the aid. So much aid came into Gaza. Hamas used all that aid to build tunnels under the ground. And now look at the chaos they are creating. Aid is great, but not right now. I suggest that we open the border for the Palestinian innocent people including women children and elders to leave the Gaza Strip or to go into a safe zone.”
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“In the meantime, we have to enforce unbreachable siege on Hamas. Otherwise, we are not able to deplete them,” he concluded. “They are under the ground. They have hostages. We have to cut power. We cannot give them food. We cannot give them water and we have to deplete them for long weeks before we can even go in. Otherwise, we cannot win this war against this brutal enemy, enemy of humanity.”
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