Sullivan downplays Trump threats to Hamas, says terror group already ‘seeing hell’
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan appears to dismiss the effectiveness of President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to unleash hell on Hamas if it doesn’t release the hostages by the January 20 presidential inauguration.
“I have been struck by this phrase about ‘All hell to pay’ or ‘All hell will break loose’ because if you’re a Hamas fighter sitting in Gaza, I think it would be fair to say that you have been seeing hell rain down on you for [15] months,” Sullivan says in an interview with Bloomberg.
He points to Israel’s “total smashing of Hamas battalions,” its killing of Hamas’s top Gaza leadership and its significant degrading of the terror group’s military network.
“The amount of firepower and military pressure brought to bear on Hamas has been pretty dramatic over the course of the past [15] months… combined with this looming period of transition from one president to another… has created a circumstance where we could get to a deal,” Sullivan says.
Pressed on whether the January 20 deadline pushed by the US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators has been effective in moving the negotiations, the top Biden aide indicates that it has.
Sullivan says that shortly after the November presidential election, US President Joe Biden directed his national security team to work with the incoming administration and ensure there is a “united front” on the hostage deal effort. “This is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue to get our hostages out, and all of the hostages out, bring the fighting to an end and surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” he says.