Ben Cohen

Nonetheless, the talk has been of moving into the second phase of the ceasefire.

This is something that President Trump is extremely keen on.

But I think that that

could fall on two points.

Firstly, Hamas doesn't want to disarm.

One of the key requirements of phase two is that Hamas surrenders its weapons.

They've made it very clear, their officials have made it very clear, multiple different Hamas officials in successive interviews, we are the resistance, we are fighting for the liberation of Palestine, we're not giving up our weapons.

So that's the first major problem is that you have an armed terrorist group,

that is still present on the ground and still very much committed to pursuing its nefarious goals.

I think the second problem that flows from the refusal of Hamas to disarm is Trump envisages what he calls the ISF, the International Stabilization Force.

This would be a kind of international peacekeeping force that would enter Gaza.

I think the numbers I've seen are anywhere between 10 and 20,000 troops

to maintain that ceasefire.

It does have a UN Security Council mandate that was secured in a vote last month.

But again, what it does not have is are any firm commitments from donor countries to provide troops.

And the reason for that is that no country wants to deploy its troops in a situation where Hamas remains armed and dangerous.

So that's why, Mike, I'm feeling a little bit on the pessimistic side here.

So basically, at the moment, Gaza is bisected by what the Israelis are calling a yellow line, after the color of the barricade, the barriers along that line.

So essentially, the Israelis have something like, let's call it 55% of Gaza, the half

that lies to the east, that borders Israel, and Hamas is in the remainder on the areas of Gaza that are adjacent to the Mediterranean coast.