Kfir Bibas. Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

In the wake of the cold-blooded murders of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas by the literal hands of Hamas terrorists, I have been haunted by the similarities between Kfir and my own two-year-old son.

My son was born exactly a month before Kfir. Like Kfir, my son had red hair when he was little. My son laughed like Kfir when he was a baby. Like Kfir, my son is a Jew. But unlike Kfir, my son is a Jew, who by privilege and fortune to be born an American and live in the United States, does not need — I pray — to fear being stolen and murdered by Hamas terrorists simply for being Jewish.

In the well over 500 days since October 7, 2023, the kidnapping and murder of Kfir Bibas symbolizes Israel’s just and necessary response to Hamas’ massacre in Israel. Kfir is and was innocence and goodness personified.  Hamas is Amalek, the Biblical enemy of the Israelites, and a symbolization for the epitome of evil. There can be no tolerance for such evil, and I strongly believe that Israel has every right to continue fighting Hamas until the terrorist organization has been destroyed.

Hamas is not only an enemy of Israel, but also of the United States. Since 1997, the US State Department has designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization. As of March 2025, Hamas still holds 21-year-old New Jersey native Edan Alexander hostage, along with the remains of four other murdered Americans. On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered more than 40 Americans.

Although it is true that Hamas has been weakened since October 7, 2023, and has suffered the loss of many of its key leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, due to the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) valiant and justified campaign, Hamas still remains in a position of strength.

The fact that Hamas has been able to continue to negotiate with Israel to ensure the release of hundreds of terrorists, many of them serving life sentences for the murder of Israelis, in exchange for the release of innocent hostages, and the bodies of deceased hostages, is sickening. The ongoing sadistic exchanges where Hamas terrorists paraded the hostages, or murdered bodies of hostages, in front of cheering crowds of their supporters calls into question how such negotiations have been even permitted to progress.

The unbalanced negotiations are not the fault of the IDF, but that of politicians — both Israeli and American. To be clear, in bringing the fight to Hamas, the IDF has endeavored to minimize civilian casualties despite operating in an extremely dense, urban, environment in which Hamas terrorists actively hide among hospitals, mosques, and kindergartens.

In fact, the IDF has gone to greater lengths than any other military in the history of modern warfare to minimize civilian casualties. I firmly believe that the soldiers of the IDF should be commended by all freedom loving nations for their adherence to the highest standards of moral and ethical war fighting.

In looking ahead to the coming months, Israel must continue to ratchet up all available military and political pressure on Hamas in order to crush the terrorist organization once and for all. I do not think that Israel should continue to follow the outlined steps of the phased hostage deal — as terrible as that may be for the plight of the remaining hostages — because to do so only encourages Hamas to plan future October 7th style attacks to kidnap more hostages to use as bargaining chips down the road.

I think it is excellent, and necessary, that Israel has once again resumed offensive operations against Hamas. Initial reports indicate that serious damage has been done to Hamas’ leadership and combat units. Israel should continue to maximize the good will of the Trump administration, and the current Republican-held US Congress, to unleash hell on every aspect of the Hamas terrorist organization. Israel must remain focused on dismantling Hamas’ organizational and tactical capabilities in order to ensure that Hamas can never again threaten Israel.

I would also like to see increased US military support for destroying Hamas. Although I would not support “regular” US military service members on the ground in Gaza due to the possibility of another Middle East quagmire, I would recommend that US Special Operations Command be given broad leeway by the Trump administration to employ the necessary assets to rescue Edan Alexander and avenge the deaths of the Americans killed on October 7, 2023. I would further recommend that the Trump administration sanction any states that provide safe harbor to Hamas terrorists, including Qatar and Egypt. This could involve cutting off foreign aid, imposing economic penalties, or barring diplomatic travel. Hamas, and its enablers, must understand that they will never be safe, whether in Deir al-Balah or Doha.

Only when Hamas feels the full military and political weight of Israel and America, and begs for the fighting to stop, will the memory of Kfir Bibas, his family, the 241 hostages, and the 1,200 murdered Israelis be avenged — and prevented from happening again in the future.

Micah Q. Jones is a publishing Adjunct at The MirYam Institute, a US Army veteran, and recipient of the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service. He is a litigation associate in the Boston office of an international law firm.

The post Hamas Must Be Destroyed first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Illustrative: Israeli soldiers operate at the Shajaiya district of Gaza city amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, Dec. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger

The Israeli military said on Wednesday its forces have resumed ground operations in the central and southern Gaza Strip, as a second day of airstrikes targeted fighters and infrastructure of the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The operations have extended Israel‘s control over the Netzarim Corridor, which bisects Gaza, and were a “focused” maneuver aimed at creating a partial buffer zone between the north and the south of the enclave, the military said.

The renewed ground operations come a day after Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza, arguing Hamas rebuffed diplomatic efforts at extending a ceasefire and releasing Israeli hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that the goal of the military campaign in Gaza remains to achieve “the objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon, including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased.”

Netanyahu said on Tuesday night that Hamas in Gaza has “already felt our strength” since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) returned to fighting, warning that future ceasefire negotiations with the terrorist group “will only take place under fire.”

However, Hamas insisted that it has not abandoned negotiations. “Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations, but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” senior official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Wednesday, calling for international pressure to enforce the ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching the truce, which went into effect on Jan. 19 and saw a weeks-long pause in fighting as Hamas released 33 hostages, 25 alive and eight dead bodies, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving lengthy sentences in Israeli jails for terrorist activity.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered almost 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages.

Israel responded with its military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.

The post Israeli Military Says It Has Begun New Ground Operation in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Palestinian terrorists and members of the Red Cross gather near vehicles on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces resumed military operations against Hamas in Gaza, striking targets across the Strip and ordering the evacuation of civilians from at-risk areas.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the US had been consulted on Israel’s plans, stating: “As President Trump has made clear — Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” she told Fox News.

Her remarks confirmed what negotiators in Washington and Jerusalem had already stated: efforts to extend the previous ceasefire deal — agreed upon in January and expired on March 1 — had failed, as Hamas refused to accept the terms.

President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had earlier reiterated that Hamas’ disarmament was a prerequisite for any long-term ceasefire: “A starter is Hamas demilitarizing, not rearming—leaving all their arms on the ground and leaving Gaza. We need a deadline for the second phase. The way the hostages are being held is unacceptable.”

Let’s be clear about what’s happening. Israel did not break the ceasefire; it ended two weeks ago.

Hamas tried to manipulate the news cycle by publicly accepting a hostage exchange offer that was NEVER on the table.

Hamas has months of food in storage but won’t release it…

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 18, 2025

A Permanent Ceasefire That Never Was

The ceasefire agreed to in January was never a permanent arrangement. It was a phased ceasefire, with an initial stage that included hostage-prisoner exchanges, humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a provision for further negotiations — negotiations that were supposed to begin 16 days into the first phase but never materialized.

Critically, the second phase — which neither Hamas nor Israel agreed to — was where the possibility of a permanent ceasefire would have been discussed. It never happened.

The media seemed to understand this just two weeks ago.

On March 3, the BBC reported: “Since 1 March, when stage one expired, the ceasefire has been in limbo. Stage two has not begun, and both sides are digging their heels in.”

Wire services — Reuters, the Associated Press, and AFP — reported on March 2 that Israel was blocking aid “after first phase of ceasefire deal expire[d].”

CNN, NBC News, and Sky News also acknowledged that the ceasefire had expired.

Yet, remarkably, these same outlets are now accusing Israel of violating a supposed permanent ceasefire by launching strikes in Gaza.

Sky News announced in its Monday night headline: “Explosive end to Gaza ceasefire as bodies pile up in their hundreds following Israeli strikes.” [Nothing “explosive” about an outcome that had been repeatedly forewarned.]

Politico, using AP copy, similarly framed Israel’s operation as a massacre, asserting that airstrikes had killed “at least 200” in what it called “the heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.”

Notably, the report omitted any attribution for the rapidly reported casualty figures — numbers that, as always, originated from Hamas.

Meanwhile, The Guardian saw fit to print Turkey’s absurd claim that Israel had committed a “massacre” — a striking choice, given that the same Turkish government has spent the past week supporting Syrian army forces massacring thousands of Alawites in Syria.

The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army has massacred over a thousand people, mainly Alawite civilians, in the past week.

Yet Turkey has the gall to accuse Israel of a “massacre.”

But @guardian amplifies anyone who buys into its anti-Israel narrative, no matter the hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/74buXOyNDZ

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 18, 2025

CNN declared that the ceasefire had been “shatter[ed] as Israel pounds Gaza with wave of deadly strikes,” opening with Hamas’ accusation that Israel had “overturn[ed] the nearly two-month-long ceasefire agreement” and was “putting the captives in Gaza at risk of an unknown fate.”

NBC News reported that “more than 400 Palestinians” were killed after “Hamas said Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement.” The outlet also included Hamas’ claim that Israel was “exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate” in its bullet point summary of events — yes, “prisoners” in this case refers to the Israeli hostages who were abducted on October 7.

Here are the salient points:

• The first stage of the graduated ceasefire agreement expired on March 1.
• Hamas repeatedly refused to agree to an extension or any of the prerequisites for a second stage.
• Two weeks ago, the international media seemed fully aware of these facts.

So what changed?

Certainly not the facts. But the media’s narrative? That did.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Israel Accused of ‘Shattering’ Gaza Ceasefire — By the Same Media That Admitted It Already Expired first appeared on Algemeiner.com.