GAZA is being reduced from a massive prison for the Palestinian people to one in which they are homeless, jobless, and beginning to go hungry, while the network of schools and hospitals is in acute crisis and collapsing as a direct result of the blockade and the deliberate policy of starving Gaza and its revolutionary masses of both food and fuel.
Gaza is in this position because of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Israeli blockade, and the Israeli airstrikes that killed 30 and wounded hundreds over the last two weeks.
This Zionist attack, using US-supplied weapons, is being reinforced from the West by the Egyptian military which is striving to drive back the Egyptian workers’ revolution with one hand, while with the other it prevents all fuel entering Gaza from Egypt.
They are doing this to seek to drive the Gazan masses and their government into the arms of the Zionists by starving them into a pro-imperialist settlement.
There are now big shortages of electricity, water, fuel, cooking gas and medicine, a lack of economy and no infrastructure.
Mohammad al-Abadlah, a member of the gas stations union, says 80 per cent of life in Gaza has ground to a halt due to the lack of fuel and electricity. He held the Egyptian government responsible for the shortages.
The fuel shortages have had a catastrophic effect on daily life. Gazans are enduring daily power cuts of up to 18 hours, hundreds of factories have shut down and even elevators are not working.
Gas station owners say they cannot obtain even a litre of fuel and people are using cooking oil to drive. Others wait in the streets for transport they are lucky to find.
Half of Gaza’s ambulances and fire trucks are out of service due to the fuel crisis, officials said on Wednesday.
Emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said no ambulances will be operating if the crisis is not resolved quickly.
At a news conference in Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Abu Salmiya warned of a ‘disastrous situation’ in the event of an emergency or an Israeli attack.
He urged the international community and human rights organisations to intervene immediately.
But there is no intervention taking place, except by the imperialist-supported Zionist regime and the imperialist-armed Egyptian military, with both interventions aiming to crush the Gazan masses.
The Quartet, the representatives of the EU, UN, US and Russia, is represented by the ‘butcher of Iraq’, Tony Blair, and is looking the other way.
The Gulf Sheikhdoms, the Saudis, Bahrainis and Qataris, are floating in oil – but there is none for Gaza.
These reactionaries are too busy repressing the people of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and after their exploits on behalf of NATO in Libya, where the oil has been handed over to the imperialists, are now busy seeking to destroy Syria with terrorist attacks in Damascus, all for the benefit of the oppressors of the Palestinian masses – the US and Israel.
We repeat, they are floating in oil, but there is not a drop for the people of Gaza. What a wretched situation for imperialism’s fifth column in the Middle East.
The truth of the matter is that Arab reaction is an ally of Israel and the US, and looks upon the Palestinian and the Egyptian revolutions as its mortal foes.
Workers in the West must come to the aid of the Gazan people and end the occupation of Palestine.
The TUC and the trade unions must call a massive national demonstration to demand the end of the blockade of Gaza and to organise the sending of oil and food ships to Gaza. The workers of the world must see to it that the blockade is broken and the state of Palestine established.
