Care must be taken whether to believe reports such as the news that there would be a pause in fighting in Gaza to remove hostages taken during Hamas' attack on Israel in October, as "a lot of it is psychological warfare," is involved, former Israeli ambassador Ido Aharoni said on Newsmax Sunday.
"What we know is one thing; the only leverage ... is the hostages," Aharoni commented on Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda." "In other words, as long as we are able to continue the siege to keep the Hamas terrorists underground in the tunnels, we have to wait until they run out of supplies."
Only then, he added, "We can talk about the release of the hostages and possibly end this crisis because Hamas is no longer controlling what's happening above ground in the northern region of Gaza."
There is currently a mass migration from the north of Gaza to the south, "which is an indication that Hamas doesn't really control what's happening on the ground in the northern region," he continued. "They're all in the tunnels. That's where they should stay until they run out of supplies and that's when the deal will happen. All the rest, I think, if very doubtful background noises that you hear."
And that means that this is "not the time to stop the fighting," Aharoni said.
Meanwhile, Hamas is not trying to hide that it's using hospital patients as human shields while it hides its compounds, said the former ambassador.
"There was an interview in The New York Times, I think six or seven days ago with the Hamas terrorists who admitted it," said Aharoni. "He said, 'collateral damage,' meaning that death of uninvolved ... is part of our plan. He admitted it. We know that this is what they've been doing for years and years and years."
Meanwhile, some members of the press are receiving information from Hamas as if it's coming from reliable sources, he said.
"They're kind of lazy," Aharoni said. "They take the information received from Hamas as if it's coming from a reliable source, as if Hamas would never lie, that an organization that massacred, butchered, that raped innocent people would never lie."
But, "we don't hear in the media about Hamas terrorists dying," he added. "It's always only Palestinians that die in Gaza. And we take the numbers that Hamas is releasing for granted…we have no idea what they're talking about, and the media instead of looking into these numbers and instead of using other sources to verify this information is feeding their audience with those numbers they're getting from Hamas is if it's a reliable source."
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