The brutal siege and military invasion of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city epitomised the Zionist assault on this most steadfast region of colonised Palestine, attempting to violently redress the humiliating defeat inflicted on Israeli military machinery on 7 October. Backed to the hilt by ultra-rich imperialist states, and throwing every possible form of weaponry at a largely unarmed people, the occupation has sought to drown the Palestinian resistance in blood. But, while they have razed Gaza neighbourhoods, the four-day ceasefire scheduled for 24 November was a significant setback for the Zionist state and its imperialist supporters. Louis Brehony reports.
Israeli government ministers make no effort to hide their genocidal intentions. Avi Dichter declared on 11 November that ‘we are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba’, in reference to the 1948 ethnic cleansing which removed 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the Zionist state. Yet, the Zionists have failed to defeat the Palestinian resistance and those who fight alongside it, and have had to negotiate with them.
Resigning on 28 October, former New York UNHCR director Craig Mokhiber condemned US and European powers as ‘wholly complicit in the horrific assault.’ With ‘genocide unfolding before our eyes,’ the UN had once again proven incapable of standing on the side of justice. 1.2 million people had been displaced; more than half of all homes in Gaza had been destroyed by Zionist bombs; running water had been cut off by the occupation since 9 October and finding it had become ‘like prospecting for gold,’ according to We Are Not Numbers; besieged and bombed hospitals were running at 200% capacity; and the Palestinian population faced hourly massacres, with children killed in overwhelming numbers.
As we go to press, over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Zionist attacks, including 6,000 children. The true number is thousands more, with unknown numbers of bodies trapped under the rubble. Already, on 9 October, Jens Laerke, UN humanitarian affairs director had stated, ‘If there is a hell on earth, it is the north of Gaza’. Vast swathes are now dust, bombed and bulldozed as Israeli troops film themselves desecrating schools and children’s bedrooms. Having instructed the population of northern Gaza to ‘evacuate’ south, on 17 November the Zionists then bombed the southern Khan Younis refugee camp, the historic ‘castle of revolution’, warning hundreds of thousands more to leave. Many will remain.
In a deliberate and systematic campaign, the Israeli military is targeting all civilian infrastructure, from housing and bakeries, to water and energy. The most dire of this litany of crimes is the sledgehammer destruction of Gaza’s already blockaded and starved healthcare system. 230 attacks on hospitals and healthcare centres had been documented by 11 November, with 704 healthcare workers and patients killed, and 71% of primary care centres put out of action, including 18 hospitals completely ceasing to operate.
Witnessing an intensified campaign from 9 November, Dar al-Shifa hospital faced a crippling and sustained attack at the hands of Zionist forces. Its cardiac ward was bombed and destroyed, fleeing healthcare workers shot and the hospital was subject to a constant siege. On 11 November three of 39 babies held in intensive care died immediately as they were taken out of incubators, inoperable due to the fuel blockade and ongoing attacks. Numbers of newborns requiring intensive care have risen sharply as a result of the Zionist bombing, including babies hit in the bombing, as well as those orphaned with the killing of entire families.
Mass graves were dug within the hospital grounds and over 170 buried. Preparing the invasion of al-Shifa, Israeli tanks were stationed at the hospital’s gates while snipers and drones fired into the main compound. On 13 November, four patients and two nurses were killed by these snipers and the following night Israeli troops entered the compound. In language repeated by reactionaries internationally, from US president Biden to the British Guardian newspaper, the occupation claimed that underneath al-Shifa was a Hamas command centre, with tunnels and weapons caches on site.
Continuing a cowardly campaign of communications blackouts, the Zionists spent the next four days ‘investigating’ inside the hospital. 7,000 people – patients and healthcare workers – were trapped as the invaders turned al-Shifa into ‘a detention camp, an interrogation centre, a military barracks and mass grave,’ according to spokesperson Ismail al-Thawabta. On 18 November, the invaders delivered orders to evacuate the hospital, sparking a panicked rush among severely injured and critically ill patients. Director General of Gaza hospitals Mohammed Zaqout confirmed that ‘we were forced to leave at gunpoint’. Needless to say, the Zionists found nothing at al-Shifa. They nevertheless detained vulnerable patients at seven-hour checkpoints during their evacuation on 22 November, and seized al-Shifa director Muhamad Abu Salmiya, who had insisted on remaining with the injured. Reporting on 14 November, Human Rights Watch – itself no friend of the resistance – found ‘no evidence’ for Israeli claims that Hamas had been using hospitals in any way and called for the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for war crimes.
Beyond the walls of al-Shifa, the Gaza Strip has burned under imperialist-sponsored Zionist massacres by fighter jets provided by US companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Britain contributes 15% of the components to US-supplied F-35 aircraft, used extensively over Gaza, and has exported £472m worth of arms to the Zionist state since 2015. On 31 October, these warplanes dropped two bombs weighing over 900kg at Jabaliya refugee camp. Over 200 were killed in two days of massacres, which destroyed residential buildings and the families inside. Jabaliya has remained a site of terror and resistance, with other massacres occurring on 22 October, and 13, 19 and 22 November. Among these terrorist attacks on 19 November, the Zionists bombed al-Fakhoura school, killing over 200, mostly displaced children and women. On 21 November, with the ceasefire all but agreed, the Zionists hammered Jabaliya again, simultaneously killing Palestinians in Rafah and Khan Younis. Such are the consequences of ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’.
War, resistance and unending imperialist-Zionist crisis
The Zionist onslaught has failed in its objectives, with no sign that Hamas or any other resistance faction has been seriously weakened by the war. Acts of resistance take place daily, with anti-tank missiles targeting military vehicles within the Gaza Strip and over its north and eastern ‘borders.’ Halting a wider ground invasion, fire fights take place in historic and newly established centres of struggle, in the camps, urban centres and rural zones. Despite well over a month of Zionist warfare, retaliatory rockets have continued to launch from Gaza.
There are also no signs that the Zionist brutality will succeed in quelling fierce resistance in Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and other areas of the occupied West Bank. Despite the puppet Palestinian Authority (PA) setting its forces on protesters – many of whom chant for ‘the fall of the president’, Mahmoud Abbas – mobilisations are gathering pace. These forces confront the Zionists’ acceleration of land-grabs, as fascist ministers arm colonial settlers and stoke further violent colonisation. From 7 October to 22 November, at least 225 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank amidst a campaign of mass arrests, while Zionist planes flattened buildings in Jenin and Ramallah. What happens in Jenin, writes Ramallah-based journalist Fayha Shalash, ‘resembles the aggression against Gaza, as well as the unsuccessful attempts to silence the resistance’.
The targets in Gaza are the Palestinian people as a whole, and whichever of their organisations stand on the side of the resistance, whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP or Fatah. They are joined by internationalist forces from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, multiplying the impossible mission waged by the Zionist state. Zionist embassies have been firebombed in Jordan and Bahrain but, during the 11-12 November Arab League summit, Saudi Arabia and Jordan led the vetoing of proposals to break ties with the Zionist state.
The US government has set no serious constraints on the Israeli state, its attack dog. Acknowledging on 15 November that Israeli methods are ‘indiscriminate,’ President Biden nevertheless virulently opposed UN ceasefire calls. An identical position is taken by Britain’s Conservative government and Labour ‘opposition.’ Zionist military spokesperson Amir Avivi told BBC Newsnight on 13 October, Palestinians in Gaza ‘need to move south, out to the Sinai peninsula.’ This mass population transfer is seriously being considered by the Zionists, as shown in a ‘concept paper’ whose alternatives included rule by an Arab regime or a PA takeover of the Gaza Strip. Careful to balance their alliances with Egypt and other regional bourgeoisies, and fearful of much broader resistance, US imperialism and its allies have chosen the latter option. The desperation of this position is reflected in the fact that the hugely unpopular PA has proven incapable of governing even its Ramallah fiefdom.
Imperialist rivalries are bubbling beneath the surface, with cracks appearing in US-EU relations. The Belgian government has called for targeted sanctions against Israel while, on 10 November, France’s President Macron said, uncharacteristically, there was ‘no legitimacy’ in the shelling of children and civilians. There is unease in European corridors of power, with 850 EU staff signing a letter criticising President Ursula von der Leyen’s unconditional support for Israel. Imperialism is seething in economic and political contradictions.
The Zionist state itself faces a crisis on all levels. War cabinet minister Benny Gantz said on 8 November that, ‘The war here is for our existence and for Zionism,’ with ‘no limitations’ on its duration. Though Netanyahu has pulled together a ragtag regime of hawks and open fascists, his rule and strategy are opposed by significant sections of Israeli society. Angry at corruption and a failure to release Israeli captives, a group of families organised a march on the home of Netanyahu on 14 November, as many others called for negotiations. Hamas’ repeated offers of the release of Zionist hostages in exchange for a limited ceasefire were ignored by the occupation. This eventually changed with a Qatar-brokered deal which would see a four-day humanitarian truce from 24 November, whereby around 150 Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for 50 of those captured in Israel, and 200 aid trucks allowed into Gaza, along with four daily trucks of fuel and cooking gas. The Zionist state and its imperialist backers have been forced to accept this ceasefire by the campaign of Palestinian armed struggle.
Tactical ceasefire calls on the part of the Palestinian resistance are substantially different to the liberal demands of Western campaigners. As put by Khaled Barakat of Samidoun, with ‘people being subjugated to ethnic cleansing and genocide, if you ask them to stop their fire, it’s just misleading.’ The stated aim of this Zionist war is the total liquidation of the Palestinian forces of resistance. This goal has been at the heart of imperialist interventions in Palestine since Britain sent troops to Jerusalem in 1917, and applied the most brutal of its colonial counterinsurgency tactics to crush the Palestinian revolution of 1936-39.
Speaking on 15 October, PFLP central committee member Leila Khaled exposed the empty language of international law and security council resolutions. The UN, she said, is ‘the power of the oppressors, the capitalists, the imperialists and the Zionists.’ Calling for Palestinian armed resistance to be the basis of a global movement, she pointed to the crisis at the heart of the imperialist camp: ‘They fear us and this is important, to change the balance of forces. Let them fear [us] everywhere.’
Victory to the resistance!
No justice – no peace!
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 297 December 2023/January 2024
