AMNA NAWAZ: The bodies of two more Israeli hostages were recovered today in Gaza.

One was Yair Yaakov, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza border on October 7 of 2023.

His two children and partner were released earlier.

The other hostage remains anonymous, at their family's request.

It's believed 53 hostages remain held by Hamas; 33 are thought to be dead.

The recovery serves as a grim reminder of the human cost of the Gaza war now 600-plus days into the carnage.

How will it end?

And what is the future for Palestinians, who have borne the brunt of the death and destruction from Israel's campaign?

For answers to those questions and more, I spoke earlier with Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Ambassador Huckabee, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thank you for joining us.

MIKE HUCKABEE, U.S.

Ambassador to Israel: It is my pleasure.

Thank you.

And great to be here from Jerusalem.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, let me begin by asking you about a recent interview you gave.

You were asked about the U.S. policy and if the U.S. is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state.

And you said: "I don't think so."

It's worth pointing out that a two-state solution has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy and diplomatic efforts in the Middle East for at least the last three decades.

Is this a new U.S. policy that you're articulating here?

MIKE HUCKABEE: It's not so much a new policy.

It's simply the pragmatic reality that right now there's just no appetite for it.

There's no plans for it.

Nobody's come up with a workable plan.

One of the things that I admire most about President Trump, he is the ultimate pragmatist, that he has two questions that he poses for every decision,will it work and will it make things better?

So, the question is, if you created and imposed a two-state solution in the midst of a post-October 7 world, would it work and would it make things better?

I'm not hearing anybody who can explain how it would work and how it would make things better.

So I'm not saying it'll never happen.

I'm not saying it aspirationally is not something that maybe people would love to see.

But I'm simply saying that, for the immediate future, for the time being, I don't hear anyone really going out there and saying it, that it ought to happen.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, whether it's in the near future or the distant future, I think the question is whether it's something the U.S. wants to work towards.

In saying "I don't think so," you articulated a change to what's been the longstanding U.S. policy.

Is that something you spoke to President Trump about and does he agree with you?

MIKE HUCKABEE: It's not something we have had a conversation about.

But, if you go back to his first term, he never brought it up.

It was simply not something that he was focused upon, because what he was really focused upon was a much bigger realignment of the Middle East.

So he initiated the Abraham Accords, which I think were incredibly historic, and he invited the Palestinians to be part of that process.

They refused.

They walked away.

They wanted no part of it.

I think the president is poised to do something incredibly significant in his second term, and that would be a dramatic expansion of the Abraham Accords.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, sir, as you know, the Abraham Accords were meant to be a precursor towards normalization between the two largest economies in the region.

That would be Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And we have seen the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, say that there will be no normalization without an independent Palestinian state.

So can there be normalization unless the U.S. is actively working towards a two-state solution?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I think that there certainly can be.

And, once again, it doesn't always mean that the Palestinian state is going to be right in the middle of Judea and Samaria.

There are many questions to be raised about, where would it be, how would it be formulated, how would it be governed?

AMNA NAWAZ: Where else would you suggest it might be?

MIKE HUCKABEE: So, it's one thing to say we would -- well, I said the French Riviera.

France seems to really be just heavy on this whole idea.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ambassador, all due respect, is that a real suggestion, that you would forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the French Riviera?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I would say it's about as real as saying that, as long as the Palestinians are paying people to murder Jewish people, which they do, or to teach them from the time they're 6 years old that it is a wonderful thing to kill a Jewish person, and their families are rewarded with a pension or a park or a street named after them, you're probably not going to see this resolved.

There has to be a cultural shift.

But here's what I would also mention.

A lot of people don't think about this.

Israel is a tiny little country.

It's a sliver of land the size of New Jersey.

Muslim-run countries have 644 times the amount of real estate than Israel does.

So when I hear people say Israel just needs to give up some of the land, well, they have given up quite a bit.

They have given up Gaza.

That was a Palestinian state.

That was a 100 percent Palestinian state.

And it could have been Singapore.

But Hamas turned it into Haiti.

There has been such a disastrous economic problem that goes on in the Palestinian Authority.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ambassador, setting aside the failures of the Palestinian leadership over the years, I want to get back to this question you raised about where a Palestinian independent state could reside.

You mentioned that Muslim countries have a good amount of land in neighboring states.

I want to be clear about this.

Are you suggesting that five million Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank be located - - relocated from their lands and their homes to neighboring countries?

Is that what you're suggesting here?

MIKE HUCKABEE: No, not at all.

No, and I think that it would be very, very, probably disastrous to try to say, you have to leave, you can't stay.

Nobody's suggesting that.

And, by the way, President Trump has been very clear in talking about Gaza and its future.

Nobody's going to be forced to leave.

I think there are going to be a lot of people that want to leave.

Under Hamas, they can't leave.

But give people the freedom of movement.

But the question is, tell us where this would work.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to ask you about the continued Israeli war effort in Gaza, which, as you know, is now over about a year-and-a-half old.

As you know, the numbers so far are horrifying.

And we have seen some 55,000 Palestinians killed in more than a year-and-a-half of that war.

And I know the Israeli military and government are obviously saying the aim here is to destroy Hamas after the horrific attacks of October the 7th.

I just wonder, when you look at that death toll, do you and the U.S. government, do you believe that that's justified in the pursuit of Hamas?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I would dispute that the numbers are accurate, because those are the numbers that are given by the same Hamas that has been very dishonest in virtually all of the so-called news that they have reported, including some of the reports that they put out, which were totally false, about the humanitarian feeding effort.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, to that point, Ambassador, what numbers are you working with?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I think a lot of people, I don't know if it's 20,000, 25,000, 30,000.

Too many.

Too many people have died.

But they have died because Hamas, who could have ended this on October the 8th of 2023, have dug in.

They have held hostages.

They have tortured them.

They have murdered them.

They already murdered 1,200 Jewish people and other people from many countries around the world, including a good number of Americans, and held Americans hostage, still holding two Americans hostage, who are deceased, but their remains are still held.

All of this time, this could have ended, but Hamas has to determine that it will not have a future in Gaza, it will not try to govern in the future.

And that's a reasonable demand that the president of the United States has made very clear has to be met.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ambassador, there is five million Palestinians across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who are looking to the U.S. and other places for leadership, who have told us repeatedly they do not want to leave the lands and the homes that their families trace back for generations and generations and are now faced with the impossible situation in Gaza having to put their lives at risk to get food for their families.

I wonder if you can speak directly to them and tell them what your message would be today about their future.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Their message should be tell Hamas they got to leave.

Tell them they no longer will respect any authority from them.

Don't allow them to continue to run your lives.

You voted them into power back in 2005 when they took full control of Gaza.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ambassador, as you well know, more than half the population of Gaza is under the age of 18.

They had nothing to do with that election.

Surely you're not saying they should be held responsible for those actions.

MIKE HUCKABEE: No, they should be set free.

That's why we're trying to get Hamas out, because Hamas has made it so that most of the population is young.

The older ones didn't have much of a life there.

What did they do with the billions and billions and billions of dollars that were poured into Gaza to make it one of the most wonderful places on Earth?

But what did they do?

They built tunnels.

They built a tunnel system that is larger than the London underground, and they did it for one purpose, to one day wake up and to murder Jews, slaughter them, massacre them, mutilate them on October the 7th, and then pledge they'd like to do it again.

That's why we're in the mess we're in.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, joining us from Jerusalem tonight.

Ambassador Huckabee, thank you for your time.

We appreciate it.

MIKE HUCKABEE: It's been a pleasure.

Thank you very much.