ON SUNDAY Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor, the military zone they controlled that cut the north of the Gaza Strip from the south.
At the start of the Zionist genocidal attack on Gaza, the Israeli military issued mass evacuation orders before launching a ground invasion of the north.
Around 700,000 displaced Palestinians were subsequently forced to move continuously as Israeli occupation forces (IOF) drove their murderous war machine into the south.
The Netzarim Corridor, which stretches from the Gaza border with Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, prevented Palestinians from returning to their homes in the north – homes that had been systematically destroyed.
If the Zionist regime believed that the tactic of splitting Gaza in two, ethnically cleansing the north for good while moving on into the south to drive the remaining Palestinians into the grave or the sea, would succeed in destroying Palestinian resistance then they have been badly mistaken.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli military were forced to pull out of the Netzarim Corridor that played such a vital role in their genocidal plans.
On Sunday, the Palestinian resistance movement celebrated the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the corridor, describing it as yet another failure of the occupying regime to achieve its declared goals.
In a statement, Hamas said this withdrawal signals a ‘continuation of the failure of the goals of the war of extermination against the Palestinian people.’
They continued that the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes and the ongoing prisoner swap refutes Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘lie’ about achieving victory in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the coalition of the resistance groups, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said: ‘The withdrawal of the enemy army from the Netzarim Corridor is a victory for our people and their courageous resistance, and it destroys the myths of the Zionist extremists.’
The PRC added that the withdrawal confirms that Palestinians will remain in their land and that displacement projects have failed in the face of the steadfastness of the people of Gaza.
With thousands of Palestinians streaming back to the north of the Gaza Strip and determined to stay, despite all the criminal devastation wreaked by the Zionist forces, US president Donald Trump was repeating his intention for the US to take control of the Strip.
Last week Trump was claiming the US and its tame Israeli lap dog would take over and occupy Gaza, with the strong hint that American troops on the ground is an option under consideration.
On Sunday Trump, speaking to reporters on board the presidential Air Force One plane, said he is committed to ‘buying and owning’ Gaza.
He said Gaza should be thought of as a ‘big real estate’ to be bought and sold, with other countries in the Middle East given the task of paying the US to turn Gaza into his ‘vision’ of becoming the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’.
Trump clearly thinks that the Palestinians and their land can be treated like just another ‘real-estate’ issue that can be bought, using other countries’ money of course, for exploitation and profit for American capitalism.
The Palestinians have demonstrated conclusively that they will never be bought and sold by the US and its imperialist allies.
Instead, their resistance, despite 15 months of genocidal bombings and ground attacks that Gaza officials now estimate have killed over 60,000 Palestinians in the Strip, has inflicted a massive defeat on Israel and the US, destroying the myth of American imperialist supremacy and its power to dominate the world.
Now is the time for the working class in the UK, the US and Europe to take action in support of Palestine.
In Britain, the TUC must be forced to get off its knees and take action, or be sacked and replaced with leaders prepared to call a general strike to bring down the pro-Zionist Starmer Labour government and go forward to a workers’ government that will immediately recognise the State of Palestine and provide it with all the financial and military support required for it to flourish.
This is the way forward.
