WASHINGTON — National security adviser Mike Waltz threatened Hamas on Friday after the terror group returned the bodies of the Israeli hostage children who were sadistically murdered after they were ripped from their homes on Oct. 7, 2023.
“They just cannot exist going forward,” the former Florida congressman said at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), adding that “they can never be allowed to run Gaza.”
The Israeli Defense Forces have claimed that little Israeli brothers Ariel and Kfir Bibas were killed at the bare hands of Hamas terrorists — not in an Israeli drone strike as Hamas had previously claimed.
The bodies of the boys, who were 4 years old and 10 months respectively, were returned to Israel on Thursday as part of an ongoing cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Their mother, Shiri Bibi, was supposed to be returned in a casket alongside her young sons, but her casket held an anonymous, unidentified body, the IDF said.
President Trump’s “heart breaks and he is horrified by these scenes coming out,” Waltz said.
“If anyone thinks Hamas is some type of quasi-benevolent, not so bad, kind of something less than the just despicable terrorists that they are, what more convincing do you need?”
He argued Hamas is the same as ISIS and al-Qaeda and “absolutely must be destroyed.”
Trump also commented on his shock regarding the hostages being released in such a brutal condition.
“How about Hamas yesterday with the babies? Are we going to continue to take that? I don’t think so,” Trump said at a governors event at the White House on Friday.
Waltz also spoke about how the Trump administration is going to put “maximum pressure” on Iran — which is the main country funding Hamas.
“We have to keep our foot on their neck,” the national security adviser said, noting that Trump has vowed to put “maximum pressure” on the Iranian economy.
Bottom line, Waltz said, “Iran can never have a nuclear weapon” because there’s a “question” on whether they’re a “rational actor.”
