Hamas released three Israeli hostages Sunday night after 471 days in captivity, the first to be released under the recently inked ceasefire deal. “It’s a very, very difficult time for Israelis,” said CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell on “Washington Watch,” “to both relish and celebrate the return of some hostages, but also know that this is a very difficult deal to swallow.” Indeed, in exchange for freeing those three hostages, Israel had to release 90 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank, who were greeted by a cheering crowd waving Hamas flags and shouting, “Allah is greater!”

During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas will release 33 hostages over 42 days, while Israel will free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. “Then the second phase, which is to be negotiated during phase number one, would be eventually the end of the war,” described Mitchell. “That is what Hamas is hoping for during phases two and three. And that, to many Israelis, would be really disastrous.”

This is because Israel was forced into a bad ceasefire deal with an adversary who still contemplates their annihilation. “Their agenda remains the same,” warned Mitchell. “They want to destroy Israel, they want to reclaim Jerusalem, and they want to kill the Jews. And that’s been part of their charter, part of their ‘raison d’etre’ [reason for existence]. And they pledged to continue that after the ceasefire.”

“It seems like Hamas hasn’t changed its ideology, that it continues to do what it can, not only to survive, but also to reconstitute itself, to be able to commit another October 7th,” Mitchell mused. “You would think, after being shellacked in so many ways and [for] so long, they would change maybe their ideology, but they haven’t.”

“Hamas is still claiming victory,” added Mitchell. “Two of the main goals of the war, right after October 7th, were [that] Hamas would be defeated militarily and also they wouldn’t be able to govern Gaza after.” Yet, “unbelievably, after so long and so much destruction inside Gaza and damage to Hamas … some people believe this deal puts those two goals in jeopardy.”

Even worse, Hamas “will be able to … re-arm and rebuild” by exploiting the humanitarian provisions of the deal, said Mitchell. Under the first phase, “maybe 600 trucks per day will be going into Gaza. What happens to those trucks? Hamas actually has been stealing many of those trucks. They sell them. That’s how they get much of their funding right now.” Additionally, “Hamas has been recruiting new members, even though the IDF has reportedly killed maybe 15,000 to 17,000” Hamas fighters. This will restore the terrorist group’s manpower, as well as its money.

This is “assuming that Hamas holds to the agreement, which is not 100% guaranteed,” noted Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice. In fact, the only thing Israel can count on Hamas to do is break the deal as soon as they feel capable of injuring Israel in some way.

“With maybe about a thousand Palestinian prisoners [to be released], many Israelis know that, historically, those prisoners go back to committing terror attacks,” said Mitchell. “You can go back historically to 2011, when one IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit, was released for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. And, importantly, one of those prisoners was Yahya Sinwar, who eventually became the head of Hamas in Gaza, who masterminded the October 7th terror attacks. So, “it’s likely that other Israelis or Jews will be subject to terror attacks by these Palestinian prisoners.”

Knowing this, the only reason why Israel even considered the deal was because of the psychological impact of Hamas holding so many hostages for so long. “This is a very, very difficult time for Israel and the Jewish people,” Mitchell explained. They are “excited [and] relieved that some of the hostages will be released, after the horrific conditions [they] have survived, but [it’s] also gut-wrenching that they know other hostages do remain” in captivity.

Yet some Israelis oppose the agreement, including a group who don’t want the sacrifice of family members who died fighting in Gaza to be in vain, Mitchell added. Another group opposing the agreement represents the families of some of the hostages, who “don’t want Israel to negotiate with Hamas,” he added. “There’s a story that we have heard of a father and son at a Shabbat dinner — and this is before October 7th — and the son said to his father, ‘Listen, if I am ever kidnapped, I don’t want you to negotiate for my release.’”

Under the Biden administration, unfortunately, U.S. aid to Israel was conditioned upon their negotiating with terrorists. Now, the terrorists have extracted so many concessions that it feels like a victory — not only for Hamas, but for their supporters throughout the Middle East. “There’s celebration in many parts, certainly in Gaza and [among] Palestinians in Judea and Samaria,” listed Mitchell, “but also in Iran … and different parts of the Middle East. Qatar is celebrating their part [as] the mediators, Egypt as well. So, this sends a signal to many in the Middle East that, really, Israel is weakened by this.”

The one bright spot he saw was in “reassuring statements by incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who says … that Hamas won’t be able to govern Gaza again. That’s a bit reassuring. But some people are still concerned [about] what this means for Hamas continuing to survive.”