SINCE the start of the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza, the Israeli regime has ordered the forced evacuation of Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south claiming that the southern part of Gaza is safe.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families displaced by the murderous onslaught in the north were forced to move to the south which contains the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza – the crossing point for the tiny amounts of UN aid the Israeli regime has permitted into the Strip.
Since the end of the temporary halt in the genocidal carpet bombing and invasion by Israeli ground forces last Friday this area has come under intensive targeting, with the southern city of Khan Younis now designated by the Israelis as a ‘dangerous combat zone’ and instructing people there to move to the border city of Rafah or a coastal area in the southwest.
This dramatic ramping up of a murderous war on Palestinians has been accompanied by the Israeli propaganda machine pumping out a steady stream of lies about not targeting civilians.
The Israeli military claimed that it had dropped leaflets with QR (Quick Response) codes that ‘open a map guiding Gazans to safer areas’.
These codes need a working mobile phone to scan them and as the UN Unicef spokesman James Elder, who was in Gaza until recently, pointed out, the Israeli bombardment and disruption of the electricity grid mean most Palestinians in Gaza don’t have working phones.
Elder told the BBC that these so called ‘safe zones’ are a ‘dangerously false narrative’ in that ‘These are tiny patches of barren land. They have no water, no facilities, no shelter from the cold, no sanitation.’
Elder added: ‘The only safety in Gaza now is for hell to stop raining from the sky.’
This dire warning of a ‘hellish scenario’ unfolding in Gaza was echoed by the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian territories Lynn Hastings, who slammed the idea of ‘safe zones’ that the US government and the Israelis have been promoting to cover up the genocide being carried out against Palestinians, saying: ‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.’
No amount of propaganda about safe zones being endlessly regurgitated by the Israeli and US governments, propaganda lies that are faithfully endorsed and repeated by the Tories and media in Britain, has succeeded in fooling the overwhelming majority of workers and youth throughout the world.
There have been five massive marches in the UK supporting the workers of Gaza, calling for the defeat of British imperialism and victory to Palestine.
This revolutionary movement amongst the mass of workers and young people recognises that Israel’s war to kill or drive Palestinians from their land is a product of a capitalist system that is gripped by a massive world crisis.
This crisis dictates the need for the imperialist powers to ensure their domination of the oil-rich region using their Israeli attack dog to keep the Middle East safe for capitalist exploitation.
The same capitalist governments, behind all the crocodile tears about humanitarian suffering, are arming Israel to the hilt.
The crisis is also dictating to the ruling class that it wages a class war to the finish against the working class and its trade unions at home.
The Tories, who have sent ships and drones to support the Israeli military, are preparing to use the full force of the state, its police and courts, to make strikes illegal and smash the trade unions as independent organisations of the working class.
This Saturday, December 9, the TUC have convened a special Congress to decide how to fight the anti-strike laws.
Congress must be forced to call an immediate general strike to bring down the Tories and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
A workers government will give all the support needed to the workers and youth in Palestine and the Middle East for the establishment of the independent secular state of Palestine.
We urge workers and youth to join the lobby of the TUC special Congress on Saturday to demand it call a general strike to smash the anti-union laws and support the Palestinian revolution.