THE United Nations assistant secretary general Miroslav Janca issued a chilling warning in response to reports that the Israeli regime was pushing for a ‘complete military occupation’ of the entire Gaza strip.
Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza on Tuesday, Janca said: ‘If these reports are confirmed, they would risk catastrophic consequences’. Janca added: ‘International law is clear in this regard, Gaza must remain an integral part of the future Palestine state’.
Janca’s warning followed reports in Israeli media outlets this week that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of the regime’s officials that he has decided to occupy the entire Palestinian territory.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying that he had held a ‘limited security discussion’, and that during the three-hour-long discussion Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir ‘presented the options for continuing the campaign in Gaza’.
At this meeting Netanyahu and Zamir reportedly clashed over the plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip, with Zamir telling Netanyahu: ‘You’re going to create a trap in Gaza’, and that occupation ‘will significantly endanger the lives of hostages and cause erosion in the army’.
Zamir is not proposing any ceasefire in the genocidal war carried out by the Zionist army, but he sees the dangers of a full scale occupation and the indefinite repression of over 2 million Palestinians by an army that relies on reservists.
Instead, the military are proposing a more ‘gradual approach’ to a genocidal war that has killed over 61,000 Palestinians and now starving thousands of children to death. Netanyahu reportedly told Zamir to either carry out plans for a full scale occupation or resign.
Netanyahu is clearly intent on carrying out the Zionist plan for the complete occupation of the Gaza Strip that will necessarily involve the eradication of the entire Palestinian population either by driving them into the sea, neighbouring countries or the grave.
Netanyahu has been given the green light for his occupation plan by US president Donald Trump. When asked whether the US supported Netayahu’s plans, Trump shrugged it off, telling reporters: ‘That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.’
This is not surprising as Trump back in February advanced the proposal for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and its transformation into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. Without the support of US imperialism and its minor imperialist allies in the UK and Europe, the Zionist regime would be unable to continue its genocidal war.
Even with all this support, Netanyahu and his military have failed to defeat Hamas or secure the release of captives, with The Times of Israel reporting that 19 former Israeli defence chiefs issued a video message on Sunday warning that the army is exhausted and the country ‘on the precipice of defeat’.
What has been achieved is to ignite an uprising by tens of millions of workers and masses across the world against the war crimes being carried out daily by a Zionist regime thanks to the support of US imperialism and its faithful supporters in the UK and EU.
The catastrophic consequences that will erupt over the fast developing plan by the Zionist regime and US imperialism to seize, occupy and ethnically cleanse Gaza will be felt across the world.
The working class have shown they will not sit back while the Zionist regime and the imperialist powers make a last desperate attempt to inflict defeat on the Palestinian people in order to restore imperial domination over the region.
The working class has the power to end the genocidal war by demanding that the leaders of the trade unions act by calling general strikes in the US, UK and Europe to bring down the capitalist regimes that support and enable the Zionist state, and go forward to workers governments and socialism.
This means building up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required for the working class to take power, with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
This is the way forward!