WASHINGTON, November 18. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden believes that a ceasefire in the Middle East would lead to new attacks from the Palestinian radical movement Hamas.

"As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace. To Hamas’s members, every cease-fire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again," he said in an article for The Washington Post. According to the US leader, "an outcome that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would once more perpetuate its hate and deny Palestinian civilians the chance to build something better for themselves.".

“The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas,” the US leader continued. As the United States works toward a two-state solution, “Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority,” he said.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total siege of Gaza and started carrying out strikes on the Palestinian enclave, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.