THE United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said yesterday that the number of Palestinians who have been driven from their homes due to the US-UK backed Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has exceeded 263,000.
Over 175,486 people among the displaced are seeking shelter in 88 schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The latest blow to the masses is that Gaza’s only power station has stopped working, meaning that the people of Gaza are being forced back into a ‘stone age’ existence by the US-UK-Israel imperialist alliance.
The UN added: ‘Mass displacement has continued over the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, with the total displacement now exceeding 263,934 people. This number is expected to rise further. Among the displaced, over 175,486 people are seeking shelter in UNRWA schools, while about 3,000 Palestinians in Gaza remain displaced due to previous escalations,’ it said.
Hamas has condemned the latest remarks by US President Biden slandering the resistance movement and Palestinians living in the besieged Gaza Strip, saying his ‘inflammatory’ comments aim to ‘escalate the tension by the barbaric Zionist regime against Palestinian people.’
It added: ‘We in the Islamic resistance movement Hamas reject and vehemently denounce the inflammatory statements, which come at the time of the Zionist regime’s barbaric aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied territories.’
Hamas said Biden’s remarks sought to obscure the ‘criminality and terrorism of the Zionist regime.’ It condemned the US president for not making any reference to ‘massacres being committed by Zionist forces against Palestinians and killing them in cold blood.’ On Wednesday a number of Palestinian civilians were killed in new Israeli air strikes on a number of homes in the Gaza and Khan Younis governorates and the city of Deir al-Balah.
The Ministry of Health said that 1,055 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, and 5,184 others were injured in the ongoing raids throughout the Strip, for the fifth day in a row, with 60% of the casualties children and women.
The number of Palestinians killed during Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has risen to 1,078, while the number of wounded has reached more than 5,314.
Israeli occupation warplanes on Wednesday bombed the Islamic University in Gaza City – the violent occupation airstrikes completely destroyed buildings at the Islamic University. The fire was so intense no one could enter the buildings due to the burning fires and the scattering of stones and rubble in the surrounding roads.
Israeli occupation warplanes and warships also bombed residential apartments as well as the Fishermen’s Port, west of Gaza City, with a large number of rockets and shells. The violent Israeli missile bombardment from the air and sea is continuing on various areas of the Gaza Strip, for the fifth day in a row, killing civilians, destroying residential buildings, public and private facilities, and infrastructure.
In the West Bank, the number of slain Palestinians rose to 24, after the two youths, Abd al-Rahman Faraj and Ali al-Abbasi, were killed by Israeli occupation bullets in the Ain al-Luza neighbourhood in the town of Silwan in the city of Jerusalem, while 150 others were injured. Israel, backed up and armed by the US and UK ruling classes, is getting ready to ‘take Gaza’ by force of arms after demolishing it first with its massive bombing raids.
The UK trade unions must not stand idly by and just watch the Palestinian masses being slaughtered by the US, UK and Israeli governments.
The millions of TUC affiliated trade unionists in the UK must take action and must tell their organisations and the TUC leaders that they must convene an emergency meeting of the TUC general council to call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a Workers Government.
This will take action to support the Palestinian masses and to drive imperialism out of the Middle East so that its people can enjoy the riches of the region and stop them being plundered and looted.
This is the way forward!
