00:00Well, I think that the talks were collapsing because of the primary disagreement between Israel and Hamas.
00:06Hamas wants Israel to completely end the war and also withdraw its military infrastructure.
00:11The Israelis seem to want only a temporary truce at best to be able to release the remaining hostages and then resume military operations.
00:19And they want to maintain a long-term potential military presence in Gaza, at the very least in the Natsarim Corridor and Rafa,
00:26but probably more expansive even than that because they don't want Hamas to ever regain control over Gaza City and reappear in northern Gaza.
00:34So American envoys are in Doha, Samuel. How real is President Trump's leverage over Hamas?
00:43Well, President Trump and his administration have had a history of engaging with Hamas constructively.
00:48We saw it with the release of Eden Alexander, and that was a notable success.
00:53But also there's a lot of problems here because the Trump administration is seen as being firmly aligned with Israel's maximalist position.
01:01I mean, Trump's re-endorsement of the Gaza Riviera and some of the kind of displacement of Palestinians is kind of a worrying thing.
01:10And there's also concerns on the Hamas side that there is a problem with humanitarian assistance being delivered to Gaza.
01:16It's being run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is a Delaware company founded in February 2025.
01:22It relies on private contractors. It's implicated in the displacement of people.
01:27The UN won't work with it, and the U.S. isn't doing anything about that either.
01:30So as long as Trump remains tethered to Israel, and there's also these controversies about American humanitarian aid entering Gaza,
01:38I think his leverage is quite limited right now.
01:41And even if Israeli demands on the ground on troops and control of aid centers are indeed met, how can that be enforced?
01:51Well, I think it's kind of quite difficult to enforce because there's so many different moving parts here.
01:56It's very possible that any kind of Israeli presence in the Syrian corridor or Rafah, even in a post-war scenario, would be attacked by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
02:06There's also the regional dimensions to consider, too.
02:09I mean, there's been a ceasefire in Lebanon since late last year, but there's still continuing cross-border fire.
02:15And I think that pressure from Aoun and other Lebanese officials to disarm Hezbollah might make Hezbollah show that they're relevant
02:21and increase the likelihood of an escalation there.
02:24You've got the Houthis capturing vessels again on the Red Sea.
02:28So this is a very hard situation to enforce because there's also so many feeders that are intertwined together.
02:34And that's what makes this conflict so hard to resolve.
02:36It's not just an Israel-Hamas conflict.
02:38It's an Israel-Iran conflict and also a conflict between these various proxy militias in Israel, too.
02:43Well, indeed. And on that, what are the risks of a wider conflict, possibly involving Hezbollah, if these Doha talks fail?
02:50Well, I think that Hezbollah saw a senior leadership degraded considerably, obviously, with the death of Hassan Nasrallah
02:58and other seniors who were there in the organization since the 1980s.
03:03But they still maintain sizable missile stocks.
03:07I mean, we're looking at maybe 120,000 missiles in their possession before the Israeli attacks,
03:12and probably much of that infrastructure still remains in place.
03:15And the lower and mid-level command structure of Hezbollah has largely remained intact.
03:20And Hezbollah remains a political party with strong alliance networks inside Lebanon.
03:26So definitely it's got the capabilities and the ability to strike back.
03:29The big question is, does it see an advantage in doing that, or does it see an advantage in biding its time and waiting?
03:36My guess is the latter, that it's probably going to not escalate in a major way.
03:40But we've been surprised before when this conflict is heated and reheated, so we shouldn't rule it out.
03:46Samuel, really appreciate your insights, as ever.
03:48Thank you so much.
03:49Samuel Romani from the Roosy Think Tank.
