choices, too. hamas could immediately release all of the hostages it holds. it could stop using civilians as human shields and stop using civilian infrastructure to stage and launch terrorist attacks. hamas could lay down its arms. surrender the leaders that are responsible for the slaughter, the torture, the rapes of october 7th. hamas could renounce its stated goal of eliminating israel, killing jews and repeating the atrocities of october 7th again and again and again. meanwhile, every one around the world that cares about protecting innocent civilians, innocent lives should be calling on hamas indeed demanding of hamas that it immediately stop its murderous acts of terror and deplorable innocent use of men and women as shields. in our meetings with israeli leaders here and jerusalem and palestinian leaders in ramallah, we discussed our continued focus on preventing the conflict from spreading whether to the west bank, to israel s northern barreder or to the broader region