From Gaza to the West Bank: Palestine’s Deepening “Nakhba”

The massacre unleashed by the Israeli state in Palestine after the Hamas attacks on 7 October has been going on for almost a year. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 41,000 Palestinians, including more than 11,000 women and almost 17,000 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip, more than 95,000 have been injured and the fate of 10,000 Palestinians is unknown. Among the dead are hundreds of babies under the age of one. In Gaza, 90 per cent of those who did not die but tried to cling to life have been forced to move several times. At this stage, the evacuation orders issued by Israel require the evacuation of residential areas covering 85 per cent of Gaza.

Palestinians seeking refuge in tent camps in various regions are once again facing death. On 10 September, Israel, once again under the pretext of terrorism, attacked the Al-Mawasi camp where Palestinians are trying to live, killing more than 100 civilians and injuring dozens more. Faced with a genocide far worse than the Nakba of 1948, the Palestinian labourers continue to suffer before the eyes of the whole world, battling hunger, thirst, disease, insects and rodents, without even being able to mourn their dead.

Israel, which has occupied the West Bank for many years, is now trying to turn it into a war zone, just like Gaza, under the pretext of targeting militants again. The Israeli army, which attacked Tubas in the north of the West Bank, killed 5 Palestinians, imposed a curfew on the town and besieged the only hospital that could treat the wounded. As Israeli forces continue their armed attacks in the West Bank, Israeli settlers are harassing Palestinians in the town, raiding homes and confiscating the belongings of Palestinian workers, their fields, olive groves, livestock and whatever else they can get their hands on. Detentions and arrests continue to increase. Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz’s statement that “the people of the West Bank should be forcibly displaced en masse, as was done in Gaza” is a clear sign that Israel’s bloody massacre will continue to increase. In addition, the statements of Israel’s fascist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in favour of opening the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Jewish worship and building a synagogue there, provoke both Muslims and far-right Israelis and escalate the tension in the region.

This atrocity, which has been going on for a long time, is being watched by the whole world and the imperialist and regional powers, with great hypocrisy, are brazenly saying “woe woe” as if a massacre was taking place independently of them. The so-called “supreme international law” contains articles that prohibit any kind of violence against the peoples living in the occupied territories. However, according to the rules of capitalism, these prohibitions are always applied to the oppressed, while for the oppressors these rules, even if written, remain dysfunctional and are considered null and void. While Israel violates international “rules” when it comes to the war protests, it does not hesitate to declare the demonstrations “illegal”, to accuse the demonstrators of harassment and to open fire on them with troops on horseback.

But despite all the oppression and tyranny, voices continue to be raised against Israel’s oppression. Following the announcement that the bodies of six of the Israeli hostages in Gaza have been found, protests continue in various forms against Netanyahu and his government, which has been criticised in Israel for sabotaging the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement. On September 1, International Peace Day, hundreds of thousands of Israeli workers took to the streets demanding that Netanyahu make a deal with Hamas so that the remaining hostages could return home unharmed. Israeli workers took to the streets in many cities, especially in Tel Aviv, shouting “Bibi (Netanyahu) release the prisoners”, “You are responsible, you are guilty”, while carrying slogans calling for the resignation of the government and demanding the return of the hostages.

On 2 September, a general strike called by the Histadrut, Israel’s General Federation of Trade Unions, brought services in many Israeli cities and sectors to a standstill. While planes, trains and buses did not operate, hospitals and schools were partially open. Banks were completely closed, and some government ministries also stopped working. Shopkeepers, showing that they were not indifferent to what was happening, pulled down their shutters. After the strike, Finance Minister Smotrich rushed to intervene, calling it a ‘political strike’ and asking the National Labour Court to ban the strike. He accused Histadrut leader Arnon Bar-David and the workers involved of ‘serving Hamas instead of Israeli workers’.

The scope of the Israeli-led war is widening by the day. Netanyahu’s revelation of his “intention to carry out a wide and massive operation” in the north of Israel and the simultaneous explosion of pagers and radios used by Hezbollah in Lebanon on 17 and 18 September, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more, show that Israel has dirty plans for Lebanon and will expand its attacks in the coming period. Israeli Defence Minister Gallant also reveals this plan by saying that “a new phase in the war has begun”. As we have stressed before, “the all-out war launched by Israel is the latest example of how the imperialists scratch the problem areas and turn them into new links of the imperialist war. This war cannot be considered independently of the protracted struggle for hegemony that marks the historical period we are passing through and the third imperialist war of division that is the direct result of it. Gaza has become the battlefield of imperialist powers like the USA, EU, Russia, China and regional powers like Israel and Iran.”[*]

Therefore, both the liberation of the Palestinian people and the liberation of the peoples of the world from becoming part of the new links of the war depend on the workers of the region, the Israeli workers and eventually the workers of the whole world to raise the struggle. Considering the impact of the short-lived general strike in Israel and the growing protests on the Israeli rulers, it is clear which way the workers of the world should take to oppose the war.