For months detractors at home and abroad have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of stalling and even thwarting a Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal for his own political considerations. But top Trump administration officials last week again stressed that the true culprit is Hamas.

“Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to respond by publicly claiming flexibility while privately making demands that are entirely impractical without a permanent ceasefire,” said US envoy Steve Witkoff after presenting a new proposal that would see the current ceasefire extended by 60 days in return for Hamas returning 11 living hostages and the bodies of half those who are deceased.

“Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” Witkoff added.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was outraged that everyone had decided to normalize a process of negotiating with a terrorist organization that had done what Hamas had done.

“We’re sitting around as the world, sort of accepting that it’s normal and okay for you to go into a place, kidnap babies, kidnap teenagers, kidnap people who have nothing to do with any wars, that are not soldiers … and taking them and putting them in tunnels for almost a year and a half,” Rubio said at a press conference during the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec.

“The whole world should continue to say that what Hamas has done is outrageous, it’s ridiculous, it’s sick, it’s disgusting. … We’re just dealing with some savages. That’s it. These are bad people, terrible people, and we need to treat them as such,” continued Rubio.

Even the deals and exchanges that have happened until now are completely illogical, Rubio noted: “These trades that are being made, they’re ridiculous trades—400 [terrorists] people for three [israeli hostages]. These are nuts.”

There remain 59 hostages in Gaza, of whom 24 are believed to be alive, according to Israeli estimates.

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