I'm John Bashing with my colleague Jonathan Schanser of the Foundation for the

Defense of Democracy of Vice President and we are discussing as we understand it the fog of war

north and south of Israel. Gaza, the Hamas brutes are not solved. The numbers are large for casualties in Gaza against the Hamas.

However, I learned Jonathan in these last days that Hamas recruits teenagers routinely and it's now filling its ranks

with teenage gunman, I don't know how young, and that that can go on endlessly because of the high density in Gaza and the available teenagers to

recruit, give them a gun and make them a gunman.

So are we looking at Hamas regenerating itself with an army of child soldiers? and

him as a child soldiers?

We are. This is actually, I mean, I think we need to acknowledge that this has been a

longstanding practice of Hamas. They, you know, have been recruiting young kids. I mean, and they

train them from a very young age to to be fighters on, you know, in different

different levels of intensity this training occurs in some cases you know young men are just taught to be able to you know move ammunition

from one house to another or to set up rocket launchers for the

fighters to use that are better trained but I think right now as Hamas's ranks

spin out because the Israelis have been decimating the organization.

I mean, they started with about 30,000 fighters.

We estimate that they probably have somewhere between 5 to 7,000 right now remaining those that have not been

killed or injured and that they're trying to reorganize but they're also trying to

grow their ranks and they don't have as many fighting age men as they once had.

So they are now turning to younger people that maybe wouldn't have a direct role in the

fighting in years past. They're going younger and younger. This is what happens when you're

desperate. I don't think that any of these younger fighters are going to be

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