(NewsNation) — Political analyst Khalil Sayegh, who was born and raised in Gaza, believes Hamas‘ abuse of Gazans is going unnoticed.

Sayegh joined “On Balance” on Monday to discuss his first-hand experiences with Hamas growing up in the troubled region.

“Hamas has used two main methods to rule Gaza: One is to claim that it’s a revolutionary movement that has to do with resistance and thus gaining legitimacy by fighting wars against the Israeli occupation,” Sayegh said.

“On the other hand, literally by suppressing people, suppressing people with soft power, sometimes by literally, character assassination and other means, and sometimes by hard power.”

Sayegh said he was arrested by Hamas before he was 15 years old, and was arrested again for what they deemed blasphemy.

“Only yesterday, a Palestinian journalist was attacked by the Hamas militias in Gaza, and they literally assaulted him, destroyed his job,” he said.

“… They said, ‘Because you are criticizing Hamas, we will attack you, and we might even kill you.’ So that’s the kind of things we’re dealing with.”

Despite this, Sayegh believes Israel arming southern clans, which oppose Hamas, is not a good idea.

“The unfortunate reality is that these types of clans have different criminal associations, and historically, part of which has been working in smuggling weapons into Gaza; others have been smuggling drugs and other criminal activities.”

He added some have been known to have association with Jihadist groups such as ISIS.