Greg Sheridan: foreign editor at The Australian on Hamas posting executions as Israel threatens aid delays

The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas holds - but looks shaky, with eight of the 28 dead Israeli hostages returned.

Israel is reportedly reopening the Rafah border for aid, despite threatening delays after the slow delivery of remains by Hamas.

Foreign editor at the Australian, Greg Sheridan, says videos have emerged on social media, showing Hamas publicly executing several Palestinian men. 

"Hamas still has the guns, it's plainly not interested in disarming. I also think it looks like a breakdown of the process for about two days."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon, shocking scenes have emerged from Gaza showing Hamas publicly
executing several Palestinian men. Hamas forces the men to kneel
in a public square, then shoots them in the back
of the head as people watch and film. Now. Greg
Sheridan is the foreign editor at the Australian High Greg.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi, Heather, how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm very well, thank you. Now, there are some reports
that Hamas is executing people who worked with Israel. Is
that true.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's certainly true that Hamas is executing people. It's not
clear that these people worked with Israel. Hamas is a
very vicious, bloodthirsty extremist organization and it has a long
history of killing Palestinians that it doesn't like. When it
first took power, found some homosexual Palestinian and threw them
off the top of buildings. And there's incontrovertible evidence now

(00:47):
that it's executing people. A few hours ago the count
was about thirty two people that had killed. It might
accuse him of working with Israel. You know, you wouldn't
take Hamas at its word. I mean, you can be
sure that these Areinians who who who have opposed how
much in the past.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Trump hassroduced that he has given Humas some level of
leeway to impose or maintain order. Would this have been
part of it or will this be shocking to the US?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah? No, I think Trump is basically talking baloney there.
Hummas was supposed to surrender its arms, and it don't
impose order by making guys kneel with their back to
you and shooting them in the head. That's not the
idea of imposing any order. This was always one of
the weaknesses of the plan. Who is going to who

(01:39):
is going to administer and rule Gaza as Israel withdraws
And I read a piece last Saturday saying this is
not a question for six months time, this is a
question for next week. And we have no answer to
that question so far. Well, the answer is Hammas still
has the guns. It's plainly not interested in disarming. So

(01:59):
this is a terrible movement itself. I also think it
looks like the breakdown of the process after about two days.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
What chances that Humas can actually be pushed out of Gaza,
disarmed and got rid of now.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, very little chance, really, very little chance. The idea
was that there be an international stabilization force, which would
essentially be Arab troops. But at the end of the day,
no Arab government is going to shoot Palestinians for any
reason at all, especially if they've been seen to be

(02:33):
enforcing a deal that in some way or another benefits Israel.
And all of these insane demonstrators in all our countries,
in your country and my country, Australia and so on
they've been demonstrating these past two years have been essentially
pro Hummas demonstrators, whereas Hummas is really one of the
most vicious, demented, bloodthirsty, gravely anti Semitic organizations. Our former

(02:58):
Prime minister'santy Abbott refers to it always as a death cult,
and he's basically right. Now, the idea was that Iran
could no longer provide them with the support that it
used to, and Katar could no longer give them the
money that it used to, and therefore they might pull
back for a while and be prepared to go on

(03:20):
as a sort of semi underground, semi insurgent force. But
it seems to me they're not even going to do
that for a single day now. Trump says, if they
don't disarm, we'll disarm them. Well, there's no chance at
all that American troops will be going into disarmment. So
if anyone's going to disarm them, it's Israel. But we've

(03:41):
seen that the cost of that is too high. And
then they hide amongst civilians, they're in civilian houses and
so forth. And if the world wants Israel to disarm us,
then there's we're going to resume the war that we've
just got out of. So I think you're in for
a very messy stalemate. And how anyone sets up an

(04:02):
interim administration, you know, this so called a political Committee
of Palestinians which is meant to run Gaza in the
immediate future. Who knows now. The only hope, I guess
would be that Katar still could apply enough pressure. Katara,
Egypt and Turkey, which all have some influence with Hamas,

(04:24):
could apply enough pressure to get them do it at
least ease up for a couple of weeks at lease,
give a please give peace a face giving a face
saving sort of decent interval.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, Greg, thanks very much, really appreciated. That's Greeg Sheridan,
the foreign editor at The Australian. For more from hither
Duplassy Alan Drive.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
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