Hillel Neuer appeared on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current Israeli ceasefire agreement and to highlight the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy hosted by UN Watch and a coalition of thirty other human rights organizations.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Terrorist group Hamas announcing that it will release six living hostages on Saturday and give Israel the bodies of four others tomorrow as part of the ceasefire agreement, the terrorist group saying that the dead include the Bibas family, that’s two young boys, Ariel and Kfir, and their mother, Shiri. They were taken captive during the October 7 attack, and they’ve become symbols of the hostage crisis. Israel has not yet confirmed that they are, in fact, dead. It’s expected that they will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners that will be released as well.
Hamas is still holding dozens more hostages. Joining me now is UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. Hillel, thanks very much for being here. The story of the Bibas family is so incredibly heartbreaking to see with the pictures of the mother and her two sons. Your reaction?
Hillel Neuer: Look, let’s recall that what Hamas did on October 7th was even worse than the Nazis. The Nazis committed the worst atrocities, but they tried to hide them from their own population in Germany and certainly from the world. Hamas did the opposite. Hamas committed a massacre, murdering, torturing, raping, and broadcast the whole thing on October 7th on GoPro to the people of Gaza.
So this is Hamas that kidnapped the Bibas family, a mother and her two babies, nine months old and a four year old, and if they are returned dead, Hamas murdered them. If you kidnap a mother and her two babies, you’re responsible for them. If you return them dead, they were murdered by Hamas, and the world needs to hold them to account.
Sadly, the heads of Hamas are sitting pretty in Doha, Qatar. They’re allowed to go to Turkey, and the world seems to allow that, other than the U.S. and maybe a few others, there’s no outrage from the world.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: And that’s why I said to they were murdered, because we have to be clear here about what has taken place, and there’s no equivalency to what’s going on here, the fact that hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are being released for committing serious crimes, terrorism against the world, and that’s in exchange for what, 20 hostages so far out of the 73?
Hillel Neuer: Sadly, there have been some media like the BBC that repeatedly have to apologize, because they say Israel returned hostages. You know, when Israel returned the man who was in Israeli prison because he strangled Palestinians with his own hands, they weren’t returning a hostage. They were returning a murderer with blood on his hands.
Sadly, Israel made a mistake. They returned him years ago, then he became the mastermind of the October 7th massacre. Once again, now, Maria, they’re returning dozens, hundreds of convicted Palestinians, others who may not have been convicted, but were detained because they were engaged in terrorism. These are not hostages. These are terrorists, many of them who are convicted murderers.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: That’s why I want to be clear about that, because this agreement calls for a total of 1700 Palestinian prisoners to be released who obviously are serious prisoners. Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Minister has confirmed that the second phase of the ceasefire negotiations will begin this week. We were waiting to hear the terms of this second phase. The initial deal included a 42-day truce and the return of 33 hostages. Israel says it remains engaged in the process, but it will not accept Hamas presence in Gaza.
Your thoughts? Is that a realistic notion that Hamas will not have any role in any governance of Gaza after this is all set?
Hillel Neuer: Look, Maria, there’s a dilemma here, and two things are true. Number one, Hamas cannot remain in control in Gaza. I believe Israel and the United States are firm on that. The Trump administration understands that Hamas are monsters. They’re situated a few yards away from communities in Israel, and we saw what they did on October 7th. If Hamas is allowed to stay in power, we’re going to see October 7th again. We’re going to see war again dragging in the whole Middle East. Hamas cannot remain in power. There are monsters. They need to be removed. Gaza needs to be denazified.
All right, that’s number one. Number two. The dilemma is that Israel still has, as you mentioned, dozens of hostages there. So Israel has to enter some kind of deal with the devil to get those hostages home, but the end game has to be removing Hamas. So the challenge now for Israel’s negotiators are to figure out in the next term, how to get the hostages back, but not to allow Hamas to re-entrench and commit another massacre.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Right. Because, you know, Hamas keeps pushing back, and Iran is pushing back. No one is going to tell them what to do with their nuclear weaponry, and they will continue building it. So do you think it’s realistic, though, to believe that they’ll come up with some agreement, doing a deal with the devil, to ensure that Hamas has nothing to do with Gaza? What do you think of President Trump’s plan that the U.S. goes in there and redevelops it?
Hillel Neuer: Look, I think President Trump put an important truth on the table, which is that for the past decades, we hear that for the Palestinians in Gaza that their home is not in Gaza. This is what the UN agency, UNRWA, has been teaching Palestinians. And of course, President Trump announced he’s going to defund UNRWA yesterday.
Here in Switzerland, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate announced that they are calling for the defunding of UNRWA after I appeared there last month. So there are people who understand calling them Palestinians refugees forever, even when they live in Gaza, is not the solution. President Trump said, if you’re refugees and you’re suffering, I’m going to find you homes elsewhere. They said, no, no, you can’t uproot us from our homes and lands.
Wait a minute. The world and the UN is telling us there are refugees. And then when Trump says, I’m going to find you a beautiful home somewhere in the region, you say, oh, no, you can’t uproot us from our homes and lands. It’s one or the other, either you’re refugees and you accept whatever President Trump is offering, or, number two, you are not refugees, and the whole UNRWA thing should be ended.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: UN Watch bringing together activists and dissidents from all over the world, including Jimmy Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, to speak at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. I’ve spoken with Sebastian lie on this program about his father’s arrest recently.
Sebastien Lai (recorded video): [China’s National Security Law in Hong Kong] is so incredibly wide ranging, but it goes from, you know, the smallest things, such as, social media posts to what they’ve done to my father. Look, my father was a peaceful campaigner for the last 30 years. Always advocated for peace, never called for Hong Kong independence. He always, always wanted the joint declaration between Hong Kong and China to be kept and to have democracy. And that’s all we did for last 30 years. And then they sent 200 [police officers] to raid his newspaper, arrest his colleagues, and lock him up in prison for the last four years, again in solitary confinement, in completely inhumane conditions.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Hillel, what about that? Is there any way to tame Communist China with all of these new laws that they threw down when they went into Hong Kong and took Jimmy Lai and other freedom fighters away and put them in jail? Tell us more.
Hillel Neuer: Look, Jimmy Lai is a hero. This is a man who’s 77 years old, extremely successful. He could have escaped from Hong Kong as the Beijing regime put their communist clutches to extinguish democracy there, he said, no, I’m staying with my people. He’s a man of faith and principle. He’s sitting in solitary confinement. It’s outrageous.
Yesterday here in Geneva, we hosted the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. We brought Sebastian Lai to talk about his father before ambassadors and before the world. We also brought victims from other tyrannies: from China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Eritrea, and more. And the point is that the world has to understand the Chinese Communist regime. These are an evil bunch of people.
We heard testimonies yesterday, not only from Sebastian Lai but also from a Tibetan political prisoner who was thrown in prison at the age of 15. We heard from the son of Wang Bingzhang, who’s been in prison for over 20 years. He’s a pro-democracy person. The more you hear about the atrocities of the Chinese regime, it’s shocking that people do business as usual with the folks in Beijing.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Hillel, great to have you this morning. Thanks so much.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you.
