Ben Cohen

So nobody wants it.

The potential donor countries don't want to put their troops at that risk.

And the Israelis don't want the diplomatic headache of having to go out and say, sorry, we killed your soldiers while we were carrying out our legitimate self-defense needs in going after Hamas.

Yeah, I'm happy to do that because I think that's a very important question.

And you mentioned those anti-Hamas militias, and those started emerging round about the middle of 2024 as the war was intensifying.

And you actually saw again at the end of 24 and at certain points in this year, 2025, you actually saw civilian demonstrations in Gaza against Hamas.

People who were absolutely tired of the war, tired of the displacement, tired of the bombing, and they were not blaming Israel.

These were Palestinian demonstrators going out and blaming Hamas for that situation and essentially saying, stop using us as human shields, stop using us as tools in this struggle, recognize us as human beings with human needs.

And one of their demands was to release the Israeli hostages.

Not only did Hamas pay absolutely no heed to those demonstrations, unsurprisingly, they went in their arrow unit, which is their internal security, went in pretty much, I mean, all guns blazing is a literal description, not a figure of speech.

And they went in and crushed these demonstrations.

Again, then you get to the ceasefire last October.

What's the first thing that Hamas does?

It basically goes to get revenge against these different militias.

So right after the ceasefire was announced, you had a wave of repression in Gaza.

There is still some talk of using these militias to police, if you like, Gaza.

There was actually an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal, you may have seen, Mike, about a week or two ago, by Osama al-Assad, who is the leader of something called the Counterterrorism Strike Force in Gaza.

And he was scathing.

about Hamas in that piece.

He actually even said, you know, I lost my daughter and my granddaughter, I believe it was, in an Israeli bombing, not because the nasty Zionists came and killed them, but because Hamas was using them as human shields.