US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Sunday that if Hamas reneges on the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal, the United States will support Israel “in doing what it has to do.”
Waltz, who is currently a congressional representative for Florida, added in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.”
Waltz added that the ceasefire should be “celebrated.”
“We will see three women coming out alive,” he said of Sunday’s first release. “Had we not entered this [agreement], these people would have died.”
Waltz said the hostages held by Hamas have been captive longer than US hostages held during the Iranian crisis in 1979, “but now we’re going to have a Reagan moment.”
That was in reference to American hostages freed after 444 days when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, in a deal that was largely negotiated by the outgoing president Jimmy Carter.
“We’re going to have President Trump being sworn-in as hostages are coming out alive,” Waltz said.
Waltz also said Trump and his team have made it clear to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “if Hamas reneges on this deal and Hamas backs out, moves the goalposts, what have you, we will support Israel in doing what it has to do.”
Waltz’s statements to CBS reiterated what he said in an interview with Fox News last week, where he said: “We’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in, we’re with them,” he said. “If Hamas doesn’t live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with them.”
Trump is set to take the oath of office in Washington DC on Monday, to begin his second term as president, after repeatedly threatening that there would be “hell to pay” if no deal was reached by the time he took office.
The ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and the terror group Hamas came into effect Sunday morning, bringing a halt to 15 months of war, which began when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing over 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages during their October 7, 2023, onslaught.