ISRAEL continues to declare that northern Gaza is out of bounds for the Palestinian people, while at the same time the Israeli army and its supporters are continuing to seek to take action in the occupied territories to terrorise and drive out the Palestinians, displacing them in an attempt to create a ‘Greater Israel’.
Large numbers of displaced people were attempting to return home across Gaza after the four-day truce, brokered by Qatar took effect on Friday morning. However, Israel has warned people that they will not be allowed to enter the north of the war-torn enclave.
However, videos showed Palestinians returning to their homes in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, despite the Israeli army’s insistence that it is a combat zone. In fact, at least two Palestinians are reported to have been killed by the Israeli military, and 11 wounded, as they have attempted the trip to northern Gaza.
The Israeli military has said that it expects Hamas would try to encourage or push civilians to return to the northern part of the Gaza Strip and that it was prepared to prevent it from happening.
Israel dropped leaflets over southern Gaza, warning the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who sought refuge there not to return north amid its ground offensive.
At the same time, Palestinians in the occupied territories have come under daily attack as the Zionist forces seek to force them out of their homes, in the hope of creating some ‘Greater Israel’.
An Israeli military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, released a statement in Arabic on X stating: ‘Residents of Gaza, the movement of the population from the south of the Strip to the north will not be allowed in any way, but only from the north to the south … ’ it read.
It warned: ‘The area north of the Gaza Strip is a combat zone and it is forbidden to stay there. The war is not over and we urge you to obey the teachings and warnings for your safety,’ Adraee added.
However, many people no longer have a home to go back to after seven weeks of Israeli bombardment and ground invasions that started on October 7.
In fact, the war is set to resume officially in a matter of days, according to Israeli officials.
The Israeli ruling classes’s war has murdered more than 14,800 people in its fury in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas’ attacks before the war stands at about 1,200.
What has changed the situation completely is that Hamas was able to take on and defeat the Israeli army on October 7th, when it caught it napping and the Kibbutzers dancing, when trained Hamas fighters crossed the border in gliders and routed the settlers.
The Israeli army is continuing to make threats, and to seek to drive the Palestinians out of the occupied territories and into Gaza, or even better, into Egypt.
This is why the Israeli army’s call to arms is not as powerful as it was, since it was their leaders that opened the door to the October 7th defeat and rout of the army.
This is why Netanyahu has an interest in keeping the war going in a desperate attempt to save his job as the settlers’ PM.
Currently, after learning that settlers had returned to bulldoze an area of the parking lot near his house in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, 80-year-old Garo Nalbandian, a professional photographer, joined a community sit-in in the area known as the Cows’ Garden with, of course, his trusty camera.
‘We won’t leave,’ a determined Nalbandian said gruffly in between snapping photos of Armenians on one side of the makeshift barricade and Israeli police and hired security on the other.
‘We take care of each other’s kids, of our families.’
On October 26, the leader of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced that it would cancel a once-secret 2021 land lease deal with a real estate company that has alleged links to settler interests.
Since then, representatives from the company, Xana Gardens, have sent contractors, armed settlers and bulldozers to seize the land – which, along with the parking lot, includes Armenian Church property and the homes of Nalbandian and four other families.
More and more Israelis are getting tired of being run by settlers and their financial representatives.
It is high time that the Israeli people rose up to dismantle the military police bureaucracy that currently runs the country for international capital.
Israeli workers must oppose any war on the Palestinian people and opt to replace Israel, with a secular socialist state of Palestine, that will be for the benefit of all of the Palestinian people.
