FORTY-THREE Palestinians were killed by Israeli tanks and rocket fire on UN-run schools late on Monday night and during Tuesday.
The schools were well lit and flagged and highly visible when the attacks took place.
The fact that the Israeli army has been provided with the coordinates for all UN-run schools and hospitals, and other facilities, indicates that the actions were deliberate and that to destroy Hamas the Israeli government understands that it will have to kill large numbers of Palestinians.
So far 600 Palestinian men, women and children have been slaughtered by the Israeli attack on Gaza.
Even UNRWA is calling for an immediate and impartial investigation into these crimes. It states that : ‘Where it is found that international humanitarian law has been violated, those responsible must be held to account.’
UNRWA has condemned the Israeli government line that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
It stated yesterday: ‘Large numbers of people including many children are hungry, they are cold, they are without ready access to medical facilities, they are without access to electricity and running water, above all they are terrified. . .
‘There is an overall atmosphere of fear. More than half of the population are children.’
However, Israel would not be able to carry out this murderous onslaught against the Palestinian masses without the open support of President George W Bush, the out going president, and the silent complicity of the incoming president, Barack Obama.
Supporting President Bush and the Israeli murder machine is Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
He refuses to demand that the Israelis immediately cease fire, and that they dismantle the siege that they have imposed on Gaza, ever since Hamas won the first democratic Palestinian general election in 2006, when it unexpectedly routed the Fatah movement.
In fact, the Blair-Brown Labour government of that time was instrumental in clamping on the siege and giving support to its architect President Bush.
The idea was to punish the Palestinian people for electing Hamas, and by making life unbearable, forcing them to remove the government which they had democratically elected.
The siege has got ever more severe since the Palestinian masses refused to end their support for Hamas.
Also in 2006, the Blair-Brown government refused to demand that the Israeli government end its invasion of the Lebanon.
This allowed the Israelis three weeks to try to smash the Hezbollah movement.
In fact, they were run out of the country to the acute embarrassment of Bush and Blair-Brown.
Now Brown is backing the same type of action in Gaza – an attempt to smash Hamas by pulverising the Palestinian people.
The trade unions in Britain are very powerful organisations.
Their leaders verbally support the Palestinian people and are for the ending of the siege of Gaza and for the ending of Israel’s military onslaught.
These leaders must now go from words to deeds or else they must take part of the responsibility for the massacres that are being allowed to take place in Gaza.
The trade unions must demand that the Brown government condemns the Israeli attack, and that it shuts down the Israeli embassy.
If the Brown government will not take action then it must be removed by trade union action.
A worldwide trade union blockade must be imposed on Israel, and the siege of Gaza must be broken by trade union sponsored food ships. This must be done without delay.
