WHILE welcoming the limited ‘humanitarian pause’ in the Gaza war to allow the polio vaccination of young Gazan children by the World Health Organisation on Sunday 1 September, Hamas Political Bureau member, Ezzat al-Resheq, condemned the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement allocating only a nine-hour window for 3 days in three locations to treat 640,000 children under 10 years old for the treatment.
Al-Resheq said that: ‘Giving certain places and times in Gaza for giving polio vaccines represents a new misleading manipulation aimed at continuing the war of genocide and the systematic killing of the Palestinian people.’
He stressed that: ‘Netanyahu’s position does not reveal an approval of a humanitarian truce that the United Nations and international organisations demanded, but means a slow death for the children of Gaza.’
‘The method Netanyahu and his government are trying to impose would thwart the United Nations move, and deny thousands of children the vaccination,’ he said.
However, a more sinister reason for the Israeli ‘humanitarian pause’ to allow the vaccinations, is that after identifying the polio virus type 2, it said it would start to protect its own soldiers in Gaza by vaccinating them.
After continuing to use airstrikes, artillery, tanks and other military means, Israel’s genocide to annihilate the Palestinian people now includes mass starvation and the destruction of water supplies and sewage treatment plants, and epidemics of infectious diseases. All these have now been weaponised for the sole purpose of exterminating Palestinians.
Israel’s war in Gaza has deliberately damaged and destroyed sewage and water systems. Sewage has been spilled into the streets near and into the camps for the Palestinians who have been repeatedly ordered to move, only to be bombed again and again.
Last week, the UN reported that besides the detection of the polio virus, there has been a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastro-enteritis, as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza. ‘This is only the start of what the Gaza Strip is going to face,’ said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir-al Balah in central Gaza.
‘Palestinians have been living in makeshift tents without any bathrooms, without any hygiene, without access to water, sanitation. Sewage is everywhere,’ she said.
However, infectious disease epidemics don’t recognise international borders and are now set to explode across the entire region, especially engulfing conflict zones and Israel itself.
With over 40,000 Palestinian murdered by the Israeli genocide, the Israelis have every intention to resume their campaign of mass murder and genocide – Palestinan children included. There is no ceasefire.
This genocide is backed by the imperialist powers of the US, the UK and the EU, who continue to arm and rearm Israel. Their strategic target is to recolonise the world and seize its natural resources.
However the capitalist system is in a mortal crisis. It is in its death agony and deserves to perish.
Palestinian trade unionists have repeatedly called for political and strike action from international trade unions across the world. In Britain, the EU and the USA, hundreds of thousands have marched for Palestine.
Now is the time for strike action worldwide to defend Palestine, and to force the US and UK governments to recognise the state of Palestine.
In Britain, the Labour government is continuing to arm Israel and support Israel. UK trade unions cannot allow this genocide to continue.
The WRP and the News Line call on all workers in the UK to lobby the TUC on Monday 9 September and to demand that it must call a General Strike at this Congress, to kick out this treacherous pro-Israeli Labour government and to form a Workers’ Government.
This must aid the Palestine liberation movement with an immediate ceasefire to lift the siege of Gaza and establish their Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. This is the way forward.
Join our lobby on 9 September and join the WRP and the Young Socialists!