A former Navy SEAL said on Monday hostages held by Hamas faced a grim outlook as Israeli forces prepared to launch a ground offensive into Gaza.
The radical Islamic terrorist group took dozens of hostages during an Oct. 7 terrorist attack on multiple locations that killed over 1,200 Israelis. “Hamas wants to kill these people. I mean, they took those hostages to continue the terror mission,” former SEAL Daniel O’Shea told “CNN News Central” host Sara Sidner. (RELATED: Former Israeli Diplomat Says Country Won’t Stop Until Every ‘Last Hamas Terrorist’ Meets ’72 Virgins’)
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“It is I don’t, the odds are not good for those hostages,” O’Shea continued. “But in the same scenario with ISIS in Syria and we did launch rescue missions. The best hostage rescue forces on planet Earth are certainly assembled in the region.”
Hamas holds 199 hostages, while 299 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel have been killed in the fighting, according to Haaretz. O’Shea added that Hamas would us civilians as human shields during the fighting in an effort to turn world and public opinion against Israel.
“They lost the upper hand in the world’s eyes for the terror and destruction they brought to Israel last week and that’s why they want to turn this around,” O’Shea said. “And soon as the body count, especially on the civilian side, no one cares when fighters die, just being blunt. Soldiers sign up to serve. They die in combat. It is a tragedy.”
O’Shea earlier noted that the operations would be very difficult for the Israelis. “It is going to be an urban assault the likes that, you know, we have seen in last 20 years and only places like Fallujah I and II and Ramadi when they overtook it after ISIS had taken it over,” O’Shea told Sidner. “It is a door-to-door battle, and again, as you stated, Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world, and literally on every corner there are going to be challenges. It is going to be a very chaotic, and reminiscent of World War II, and what happened in Europe in World War II.”
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