Israel’s US ambassador: ‘We can’t live with jihadis on our border anymore’

Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told ABC News on Monday that once the remaining hostages’ bodies are returned, the second phase of the ceasefire deal could begin, which requires the “disarming of Hamas and demilitarization of Gaza.”

“We can’t live with jihadis on our border anymore. That’s the lesson of Oct. 7,” said Leiter, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The return of Lt. Hadar Goldin for burial, an Israel Defense Forces soldier whose body had been held by Hamas for 11 years, was a positive development, he said. However, he noted that the terror group still holds the bodies of four hostages, including a Thai worker murdered on Oct. 7.

Once those bodies are returned, Israel can start phase two of the ceasefire, in which Hamas puts down its weapons, he said.

The ambassador defended Israel’s post-ceasefire strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying they don’t jeopardize the agreements because “ceasefire and ultimate peace depends on groups like Hamas and Hezbollah disarming.”

He explained that the Hezbollah ceasefire is performance-based, requiring the Lebanese army to disarm the terrorist group. If its fails to do so, and Hezbollah rearms, Israel must act, he said. “That’s part of the agreement that we have,” he added. The same principle applies in Gaza, he said, where Hamas is supposed to disarm.

Although Hamas agreed to disarm as part of the Trump-brokered ceasefire, officials speaking on behalf of the organization say it has no intention of actually doing so.

Hamas also has attempted to carry out attacks on Israeli forces. On Tuesday, a terrorist was identified crossing the ceasefire line in the Gaza Strip and approaching IDF forces “in a manner that posed an immediate threat,” according to the military.

IDF forces in the area eliminated the terrorist.

Leiter said that the issue of removing terrorist armies on Israel’s borders was a personal one for all Israelis, including himself.

“Nov. 10 [2023] is when my oldest son was killed, when he led forces into Gaza at the outset of the war,” said Leiter. “So this has been a national trauma for all of us. We want this war to end, but Iran has proxies surrounding our country that are intent on destroying us. We’ve degraded them, but we have to defeat them.”

Asked about the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdami, who has trafficked in vicious anti-Israel libels, Leiter said, “Israel has been accused of the most horrific things over the past two years, and anybody who’s played into that is going to owe Israel an apology, because all the facts are coming in now. There was no genocide. There was no starvation. There was a big blood libel against the State of Israel.”

Leiter noted that Nov. 10 marked 50 years since the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution at the United Nations. Quoting then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said “an evil has been let loose on the world,” Leiter said that evil is again “being let loose. And he called it for what it is. It was a new version of antisemitism.”

It’s important to stop leveling blood libels at Israel, as the unfounded attacks endanger Jews everywhere, he said.