Joe Truzman
speaker
207 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard 11 Oct
Joe Truzman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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.
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