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Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-794072
Sen. Graham: U.S. Won't Support Gaza War Pause without Hostage Release
(Jerusalem Post) Tovah Lazaroff - The U.S. will only support a pause to the Gaza war that includes the release of hostages, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said in Israel on Wednesday as he warned Hamas not to misunderstand Washington's abstention on the recent UN Security Council ceasefire resolution. "Hamas can't believe for a second that Israel would pause the fighting without the return of the hostages," Graham said. "The resolution debacle, for lack of a better word...will soon be behind us. The one thing that Israel cannot afford is mixed signals." He noted that the wording of the UN resolution "created doubt" and that confusion has to be erased. Israel has a "moral obligation to its people to destroy Hamas," backed by international law, and that Washington would in the end support an IDF Rafah operation. "I do know this administration agrees [that] to ask Israel not to destroy these [Hamas] battalions [in Rafah] is just off the table." "Israel has to destroy Hamas militarily. There is no hope for peace until you do that. The idea that Israel is somehow doing less than this [or] that Israel is violating international law. I don't buy that." He also dismissed claims that Israel was deliberately starving Palestinians, explaining that no other army in modern-day history has done as much as Israel to provide for enemy civilians during wartime. Graham also stressed that Congress does not support slowing down weapons sales to Israel. "There would be a violent reaction in Congress if there was a whiff of any suggestion that we're slowing down armaments to Israel, which is fighting for its very existence. So I think there will be a bipartisan pushback." "UNRWA as an organization is dead to the United States and the people of Israel. It must be replaced in terms of health care, basic necessities like food, as well as education....Somebody needs to pull the Palestinian school system up by its roots and destroy it."