Joe Truzman

Right. Yeah, you've kind of hit it on the mark there. Israel arming Palestinian militia in Gaza isn't the headline that you usually observe in the news. I'll tell you that over the years that I've been doing this. So, quite interesting. Nevertheless, yes, that's what's happening, at least from what we know. It's Israel is arming them with light arms.

I think some of the reports that I read were the Kalashnikovs. I think there's a little bit more support than just that. Nevertheless, this nascent militia, who is run by or is led by an individual from southern Gaza named Yasser Abu Shabab, effectively what they're doing, right, with several hundred men, armed men, is they are countering Hamas.

And this is, again, a Hamas right now that has been really been hit hard over the last more than year and a half of war with the Israelis. So it's an interesting development, right? Right now, most of the information that we know is that this organization who calls itself the Popular Forces is based in southern Gaza, all right? And again, they're acting as a counter to Hamas. Will they succeed?

Yeah, so that's what it seems, appears to be. However, I will add this kernel of information. About a week ago or so, Hamas published this video where they said that they had attacked or ambushed what they said was IDF troops, and they killed a few of them.

But I believe, and I think other analysts believe, that they weren't IDF troops, actually, that they were actually the members of this new militia. Because you can just tell, watching the video, that these guys weren't wearing uniforms, all right? There was something off about it. Anyway, and this was in southern Gaza,

So it's interesting, Hamas is, you know, Hamas is aware, right, about this organization and they're trying to counter it. But yeah, effectively right now, this organization, this militia is in Southern Gaza. Will it spread? It's possible, right? But they're going to need new recruits, right? So there's a lot to see, a lot we have to wait here and see what's going to happen.

Again, this is all pretty new.

Right. It's tough. I mean, listen, this is something I've said for a while and have assessed for a while now that Hamas is in pretty much every facet of life in the Gaza Strip, all right?

uh whether it's uh in uh working with working in uh having men in working with ngos right charities uh or uh media and plans for example there are large clans in the gaza strip many of them uh who have members of uh whose members are uh or members of hamas uh so

I think it is possible now that a clan can independently act without Hamas's interference only because Hamas is so weak right now because of the war. Now, if you were to ask me this question before October 7th, 2023, I'd tell you no way. But I think things are changing. However, I think Hamas still wields a lot of influence, right?

And this actually, speaking of clans, the member, at least the clan that Shabab belongs to reportedly pretty much disowned him. because of this news that came about in recent days and today. So yeah, I think it's possible, right? But again, Hamas still wields some influence in the Gaza Strip.

Right. That's a million-dollar question, right? Who's left? I mean, let's be honest here. Most of Hamas's hierarchy has been eliminated. The top either political guys or top military guys, they're gone. But there's a couple of them still, you know, some stragglers, right? But I think if I were to put... Money on it, it would be this Gaza Brigade commander, Izzedine al-Khabad.

He's been around for many years, and so far has survived Israeli attempts to assassinate him. So, I think he's calling the shots right now, at least in the interim, all right? Let's say Hamas survives the war, okay? Say they survive the war, I think there'll be a formal process of electing a new Gaza chief, okay? But I think right now he's the one calling the shots.

There are a couple of other guys that may be their alternatives, right? But I think he's the man right now, just because he's well-known. He has the experience, the military experience to, I guess, just to command Hamas right now during these trying times for the organization.

Right. And that's been the big problem. I mean, unsurprisingly that, of course, Hamas has said this and allied groups and Palestinians that essentially this Abu Shabab, his militia is Israeli proxied. All right. And yeah, it's basically they're controlled by Israel. So it is a problem.

However, I think the Israelis already understood this, all right, even before they started supporting this organization. I think the strategy here could be a two-parter, really. First, to show, all right, to demonstrate to Palestinians that there are other forces, there are other options, okay, other than Hamas, okay.

But that only can happen if this new organization, this new militia is successful. But to be quite honest with you, and you mentioned it too, I do have great concerns. I think the Israelis are taking a pretty significant risk here. Listen, we have to be honest. This isn't the first time Israel has done something like this.

Israel has armed organizations before the Falange in Lebanon, for example, or the Syrian rebel groups, of course, in southern Syria. And things didn't turn out too well in those cases. Nevertheless, I think another part here that's important is that if Israel succeeds in obviously not only just establishing this militia, but having this militia cause problems for Hamas,

it'll weaken Hamas even further. I mean, let's face it here, Hamas is battling the IDF and now it's already using resources. I mean, we've seen evidence of it with the video that I talked about earlier, where Hamas is having to dedicate resources to trying to eliminate this new emerging or this nascent organization.

So, and the problem too for Hamas is that it may compel others, other Palestinians to say, hey, why don't we form an armed group? If the Israelis are helping Abu Shabab, why can't they help Abu Ahmed, for example, right? Or whoever, right? So, the problem here for Hamas is that new organizations will start popping up, right? These armed organizations that are anti-Hamas.

I think that's in the Israeli calculus here, the Israeli strategy to compel the Palestinian people to rise up against Hamas. It wouldn't surprise me. It's not a for sure thing, of course, but that's something I've suspected here because just this new group, just them alone, even with a weakened Hamas, I don't think they could just beat Hamas by themselves. Hamas is still too large. We'll see.

We're going to start seeing new organizations popping up in the next few weeks and months. Just depends if the war lasts.

Right. So, effectively, they are a nonprofit organization that has replaced the UN or UNRWA and other organizations to effectively deliver aid to the Palestinian people. Now, the big point about this organization is that its goal or one of its methods is to remove Hamas from the equation. Hamas, with previous mechanisms to distribute aid in the Gaza Strip, Hamas was leveraging it.

They were effectively just taking the food, taking the aid for themselves. In this situation, the foundation is able to distribute aid to these organizations or rather to the Palestinian people with a much less Hamas interference. I'm sure some Hamas, right? Hamas, the organization at least, is getting some aid out of it, right? But nothing like it was before.

See, the problem was before Hamas, as I said, they would leverage this aid that would come into the Gaza Strip. How would they do that? They would basically steal it and sell it on the black market, all right? Now, they can't do that, are not nearly in large quantities as they did before. So this is what this new foundation is doing. They're distributing aid to civilians in need.

It just started a few weeks ago. Of course, it's been a bumpy ride, I think, and I'm not surprised. But I think from the last report that I saw is that they've handed out distributed, I believe it was about 8 million meals so far. So, I mean, that's pretty good. But I still think there's a long way to go for them.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, Hamas used to be deeply involved in the logistics of distributing the aid that was coming into the Gaza Strip. So, yeah, absolutely. Now, the Palestinian people don't have to rely on Hamas to get food. So, it's a big deal and it really hurts Hamas. You can tell that Hamas is hurting just because the way they're acting, all right?

You see they publish these statements, they're completely, of course, against the foundation. And of course, there's a lot of incitement too, not only by Hamas, but by their allies in the Gaza Strip with a lot of these statements that are coming out against Hamas. the foundation.

So, they want... Listen, Hamas said they want the UN, the UNRWA, and the UN back in the Gaza Strip because effectively what Hamas did before was that they were able to control the UN. I mean, they built tunnels and command centers below UNRWA compounds. It was pretty incredible how much these organizations, not only Hamas,

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, for example, they had infiltrated UN organizations and other charities, right? It was a serious problem. And now through this, because of this war, we got to see the evidence of this infiltration, right? What Hamas did with a lot of these charities. So the foundation is there to effectively stop that, right? And well, Hamas doesn't like it.

I mean, you can say that. I know that it's been established earlier this year with Israeli and American backing. And I believe now their chair is Johnny Moore, an evangelical leader. But listen, you know, this is a very difficult situation for any organization to come in into a war-torn territory, all right, and try to distribute food. And to be quite honest with you, I...

Now, I think they're doing a pretty good job because, listen, Hamas, they're going to try, they're going to do what they need to do to undermine this new mechanism, okay?

Right. No, you're definitely not wrong. Yeah. Because listen, effectively what's happening is that Hamas is being replaced as the authority. All right. They're not the authority anymore, at least partially. And they don't want Palestinians to see that. Okay. Because that's where Hamas is losing its power and its grip over the population. And yeah, that's It's going to cause problems for them.

So I think over the next weeks, maybe months, depends if there is a ceasefire, if there isn't a ceasefire, we're going to see a lot more coming out of Hamas, I think. And I hate saying this, I don't like it, but it would not surprise me if we start seeing Hamas activity at these aid sites to specifically undermine it. Just because, again, this is a terrorist organization.

They're going to do whatever it takes to survive. That's the thing. And I wish people would understand, more people would understand that Hamas's priority is itself. Not the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people come in second, maybe even third. Hamas needs to survive, right? And that's what they're trying to do here. So, they will do pretty much anything to ensure that, unfortunately.

So, we have to see. There's still, I think, a long road ahead. Will there be a ceasefire? Who knows? But in between... I think Hamas is going to continue to at least try to undermine what's happening with the foundation, right, with this new mechanism. And of course, they have their own problems with this new emerging militia.

Right. You know, this may sound counterintuitive, to be quite honest with you, but when I start seeing, you know, fresh reports about a possible ceasefire, you know, quite frankly, I don't believe them because we've seen it so many times now, right? Just in recent days, recent weeks, we thought maybe there was going to be a ceasefire. Nothing.

And I'll tell you, I think negotiators are hitting the same roadblock over and over again over the past month, over the past, well, more than a year and a half now. And that is this, that Hamas wants to stay in power. They say, yes, Israel, we'll give you the hostages that we took. But you guys got to get out and we're staying in power.

And Israel says, you know what, we'll give you thousands of Palestinian prisoners for the hostages that took captive on October 7th, but you're not staying in Gaza, right? And I think you're not going to at least govern in Gaza anymore. And that's the problem, I think, that we keep running into. That's why this ceasefire, it gets close, right?

These negotiations get close to a deal, but then nothing happened. I think that's where we're at and have always been at for some time now. So, this is why we're starting to see this new militia emerge, I think, to try to put more pressure on Hamas. Additional IDF maneuvers in the Gaza Strip in recent days, more pressure on Hamas. to eventually let go. I think this is what Israel is trying to do.

Will it work? I don't know. But what I'm afraid of, what I'm concerned is that Hamas will continue going despite the collateral damage or the damage that has been caused in Gaza, unfortunately. I'm not sure they'll give up or surrender. I don't know. I think that's where we're at right now, especially with the ceasefire. It's just the same problem. One side doesn't want to give up.

It's, you know, it's terms and the same goes for the other. So one of them is going to blink. I just don't know who.

I think that's what Hamas fears the most. I think that's what Israel wants more than anything. We've seen a little bit of it with protests, especially in the Northern Gaza Strip over the last months. You see these protests, they start for a few days, they start rolling, the more people start coming out, but then they stop all of a sudden. Why do they stop? I'll tell you why they stop.

It's because there are members of Hamas that intimidate these protesters. They go to their homes. Sometimes they beat the protest. Sometimes they kill some of the protesters. They've done that. So, as long as Hamas has the ability to intimidate protesters, to essentially or effectively quash these protests, I don't see the Palestinian people rising up.

However, again, as we talked about earlier, this emerging militia may compel other Palestinians to do something similar, all right? And that would be a big problem for Hamas. Right now, today, I don't think the civilians could rise up against Hamas, but maybe in a month or two, I think it's possible.

But there needs to be more coordination, more organization among the Palestinian civilians for that to happen. I think it has to be widespread, but we haven't seen that so far.