Tobias Ellwood spoke to Ellie Costello and Tom Harwood on Britain's Newsroom
Hamas wants this war with Israel to spread throughout the world, a leading MP has claimed.
Tobias Ellwood, speaking on GB News back Britain's backing Israel said: "I think it's been absolutely right that we stand by Israel. Hamas's intent is very, very clear indeed.
"War with Israel, fight using any means, however barbaric, and widen the conflict beyond Gaza.
"So it's quite right that the UK, the US and the West stands by Israel. It faces the biggest security threat since the state was formed. With Israel on the West, much as we want to see Hamas neutralized and defeated. Having seen his barbaric terrorist actions, Hamas has actually removed its right to participate in representing Gaza and indeed the Palestinians any further.
Ellwood added that Hamas were setting a trap for the West: "But I make the point that the scale of the planning that Hamas has displayed to date suggests that they are deliberately provoking Israel to launch that ground attack to enter Gaza, and we are entering uncharted territory.
"We need to be thinking not just operationally but strategically too, not thinking one chest move ahead, but four or five and recognizing there will be major consequences to a ground attack.
"And we have to ask yourself, does this help or hinder the overall mission to remove Hamas?
"My worry is that this is deliberately going to escalate beyond the West Bank, beyond eastern Jerusalem, beyond Lebanon, and indeed elsewhere.
"And I fear that we are falling into a trap because Hamas has no care, no interest to represent those 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.
"It wants a ground war. It wants this war to spread. It wants Palestinians and Arabs far away at least to support its cause. And I think it's only a matter of time before we see serious unrest in a Western capital.
"We already see tensions rising. So I think we need to be really clear what the mission is, the removals, the surgical removal and replacement of Hamas and the isolation of its pay masters, Iran, that we do not spend enough time talking about because vengeance alone, although understandable, is not a strategy."
