FORMER Mossad official, Rami Igra, has said all Palestinians in Gaza over the age of 4 deserve to face Israel’s collective punishment policy of withholding food and humanitarian aid.
Igra said in an interview broadcast on Israeli television last Tuesday that the ‘goal’ is to force Palestinians to ‘dislike’ the resistance movement Hamas.
‘In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted for Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter. And our goal at the moment … is to turn them from Hamas supporters to Hamas dislikers,’ Igra said.
Igra’s comments echo other Israeli officials’ remarks that dehumanise Palestinians and normalise deadly violence against them in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog has just claimed that there are ‘no uninvolved civilians in Gaza’ to justify the genocide happening in Gaza.
In November, the Israeli minister of heritage Amihai Eliyahu said that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza is a possible solution to destroy it and an option that must be studied.
‘Death does not frighten the residents of Gaza, and we must know what scares and terrifies them, to force them to leave, and wipe them off the face of the Earth. They should tremble in fear and terror,’ Eliyahu said. He further said that there are no civilians residing in Gaza and ‘there is no difference between them and Hamas’.
Meanwhile, on average more than 10 children per day have lost one or both of their legs in Gaza since Israel launched an all-out aggression on the besieged territory early in October, according to Ason Lee, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Children in Gaza are also suffering the psychological consequences of Israeli bombings while losing their families and belongings as they are suffering from acute shortages of food and water.
The Israeli regime’s relentless bombing of Gaza, calling it ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinians, has forced the helpless residents to flee towards the southern town of Rafah, bordering Egypt.
Rafah is now Gaza’s most populated area where 1.5 million people are sheltering as their last resort – over half a million of them children.
Nearly 29,000 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and adolescents, have been killed so far as a result of the brutal military onslaught.
In the UK, the Labour Party under Starmer, is seeking to expel MPs from the party who have openly opposed Israeli terrorism, or to prevent them standing again in new elections. There has however been a reaction to this policy.
Scottish Labour has unanimously backed an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with MSPs calling for ‘unequivocal’ support and putting pressure on the rest of the party. All delegates backed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s calls for an immediate end to the Israel-Hamas war at the party conference in Glasgow.
He said on X that he was ‘proud’ the party had passed the motion, and told delegates during his speech at the conference that ‘the fighting must stop now’.
All UK trade unions and the Labour Party must follow Scottish Labour’s support for an immediate ceasefire, ousting Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, in the process.
Already, party delegate Nairn McDonald told the conference that Starmer must stop ‘equivocating’, before adding: ‘We demand that Scottish Labour MPs vote for a ceasefire in the Commons when they are given the opportunity.’
The trade unions must now follow the lead of Scottish Labour and support the call for an immediate ceasefire with a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a Workers Government.
This will expropriate the bosses and the bankers, immediately recognise the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital and at home expropriate the bosses and bankers and bring in socialism.
There is not a moment to lose. Forward with the general strike! Forward to a socialist UK and to the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital where Arabs,Christians and Jews can live peacefully side by side.
