Hamas, as shown in its treatment of the three Israeli hostages released Saturday, have shown they are "monsters who learn from the Nazis" and must be destroyed, Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel in New York City, said on Newsmax Sunday.
"Our forces actually found in the Gaza Strip and the headquarters of Hamas the 'Mein Kampf' book," Akunis told Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "It's Hitler's book on how to destroy and kill Jews, so they learned from them, and they are the new Nazis of the world."
Saturday, armed militants led Israeli civilian hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Amionto a stage before a crowd of hundreds, where the men, all emaciated, had to make statements before they were handed over to the Red Cross.
Akunis told Newsmax that negotiations must continue because "we want all our hostages home again [from] these monsters."
Still, he said, "the whole Western world must understand that we are dealing from time to time."
Israel wants the hostages home, he added, and "after that, we will finish this phase."
"I want to assure you that we will destroy Hamas like the Western world, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the British, they destroyed the Nazis," said Akunis.
Meanwhile, Akunis discussed last week's meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said that Trump's call to redevelop Gaza is a "better" alternative to the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
"The Israeli-Arab conflict is something like 100 years," he said. "Every time the idea of American presidents and unfortunately Israelis as well, including governments in Israel and of course all around, the main idea was that if you want a peace treaty, then you'll move the Jews."
But Trump, Akunis added, is "thinking out of the box and for the first time."
He also said Trump's call to remove Palestinians from Gaza is a "very good idea because they can't live there" because "they ruined the place."
"Hamas actually ruined the place," he said. "So we want them to live and we want them, all of us, the American president and the Israeli government and I suppose that the Europeans as well, they want them to live in a new home. So they need to rebuild the Gaza Strip."
He also congratulated Trump for resuming weapons supplies to Israel after the Biden administration withheld them.
"I want to congratulate him and to thank him in the name of the Israeli people," Akunis said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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