Senior White House spokesperson John Kirby on Friday slammed Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for comments he has made undermining U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a hostage-for-cease-fire deal, calling the far-right minister an “extremist” whose views would “sacrifice the lives of Israeli hostages.”

“Some critics, like Mr. Smotrich, for example, have claimed that the hostage deal is a surrender to Hamas, or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners. Mr. Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely without pause and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all,” Kirby told reporters on Friday. “His arguments are dead wrong. They’re misleading the Israeli public.”

Kirby’s remarks come a day after the leaders of the United States, Egypt and Qatar released a joint statement calling for Israel and Hamas to send negotiators to a new round of negotiations on Aug. 15. In Kirby’s unusually public — and unusually harsh — condemnation of Smotrich, he drew a distinction between Smotrich and other Israeli leaders, pointing out that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office agreed to send Israeli officials to the Aug. 15 meeting. 

“We’re glad that Israel has made it very clear and very public that they will send a negotiating team, and they’ll do it in good faith,” said Kirby.

President Joe Biden “has Israel’s back against Iran and its proxy groups. He has Israel’s back on this deal. He won’t allow extremists to blow things off course, including extremists in Israel making these ridiculous charges against the deal,” Kirby said. “It’s the right deal at the right time, it will save lives, and you know what, it’s going to also advance Israel’s security. It brings relief as well to civilians in Gaza.” 

On Friday morning, Smotrich called the push to restart the negotiations a “dangerous trap.”

“It is definitely not the time for a capitulating deal that ends the war before the elimination of the Hamas ISIS Nazis, allowing them to recover and return to murder Jews again,” Smotrich wrote in a social media post.

Biden has “been a defender for Israel for the entirety of his public service,” Kirby said, telling reporters that “the idea that he would support a deal that leaves Israel’s security at risk — it’s just factually wrong. It’s outrageous. It’s absurd.”

Earlier this week, the U.S. secured the release of 16 people being wrongfully detained in Russia in exchange for the release of several Russian criminals. Kirby pointed to that prisoner swap as a parallel to what the U.S. and its partners seek in Israel.

“Sometimes countries that value the lives of their citizens, as we do in the United States and as Israel does, make these kinds of trades to save lives, innocent lives. There’s no surrender in that. It speaks incredibly well of our principles and our values, what we stand for,” said Kirby. 

The renewed push for a hostage and cease-fire deal comes as Israelis fear impending attacks by Iran and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia, following Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s top military commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.