(NewsNation) — “It doesn’t get worse than this.” Mosab Hassan Yousef says, referring to terror groups such as Hamas sitting across from negotiators from the United States, Israel and other sovereign nations as an equal negotiator.

“Once we legitimize terrorism, what’s gonna be next? How (will) other terrorists perceive this move? Are they going to try to take human shields? Are they going to try to bully and blackmail democracies worldwide?”

Mosab Hasan Yousef was Hamas “royalty” — the son of co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. But watching Hamas prisoners inside an Israeli jail torture fellow Palestinians helped change his mind, and he became a spy for Israel inside Hamas for a decade.

As for the war in Gaza, “the president of the United States and many other leaders of the free world walked right into Hamas’ trap,” Yousef told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.

The “trap” he refers to is the outrage over Israel’s attacks on Hamas leaders that also claim the lives of civilians.

“This is weapon that Hamas has: using their own people as human shields, sacrificing as much as they can, maximizing the civilian casualties, because they know that this will not be accepted globally, and it will create the global chaos we are experiencing right now.”

But Yousef doesn’t use the term “innocent civilians.”

“A huge part of the Gaza ‘civilians’ are complicit in Hamas and Hamas crimes,” he said. “They voted for Hamas. They believe in the same culture, the same belief system. They hid hostages. They are not helping Israel find the hostages’ locations. Gazans are paying the price of being complicit in Hamas crimes.”

While he mourns the deaths of so many children in Gaza, Yousef doesn’t blame Israel. He blames Hamas.

“That fact that Hamas killed Jewish children in the morning and in the evening hid behind their own children does not make them immune. Israel has to finish the job by removing Hamas from power and bringing the hostages back.”