YESTERDAY, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz issued a statement that announced a massive capture of territory in the Gaza Strip that will be added to the Zionist state’s so-called ‘security zones’.
The expansion of military occupation of Gaza is presented by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign to force the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to release the remaining 59 Israeli captives without the Zionists having to commit to the truce agreement which involves the withdrawal of occupation troops and a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas has insisted on a return to this agreed deal and has offered to release all captives in return for a permanent ceasefire.
Netanyahu, however, is not interested in the safety of Israeli captives or any ceasefire, but only in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip of Palestinians through genocidal terror and mass starvation.
Since March 18, Israel has resumed its murderous bombardment of Gaza, killing over 1,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children.
The official number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza is over 50,000, with hundreds of thousands forced to constantly move as Israeli military issue forced displacement notices.
Al Jazeera journalist Abu Azzoum, reporting from central Gaza, noted that reports in the US and Israel claimed that the Israeli military aimed to capture about 25% of Gaza’s territory as part of its ‘pressure campaign’ against Hamas.
But, Azzoum stated: ‘Many Palestinians believe this is only the beginning of the plan to carry out mass displacement of the population from the entire Gaza Strip into Egypt’, adding: ‘This is something we’ve heard repeatedly from the Israeli prime minister and has been supported by the US.’
This is precisely the plan supported openly by the US administration and tacitly supported by the Labour government in Britain, which has imposed a wall of silence over the genocide being carried out by the Zionist regime while continuing to arm and provide all the logistical support that Israel requires to commit its war crimes.
Not even mild criticism of Israel is permitted by Labour leader Keir Starmer.
Last month, Labour foreign secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons that the Israeli government’s actions were ‘a breach of international law’, only to be slapped down immediately by Starmer who insisted that any illegality is for the international courts to determine.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suspected war crimes last year, but this is dismissed by Starmer who refuses to commit the UK to implementing this arrest warrant and refuses to admit that Israel is committing genocide.
Even the most blatant war crimes like the summary execution last week of 8 Red Crescent paramedics, whose bodies were deliberately buried to disguise the fact that they had been bound before being shot in the head and body by Israeli troops, has not merited one word of condemnation from the Labour government.
International law doesn’t apply to Israel as far as Starmer and the rest of the imperialist powers are concerned.
While Starmer is giving the Zionists impunity for genocide, his government is using the full force of the law against all those who support the Palestinian people.
Last week, 30 police officers, some armed with Tasers, smashed their way into the Quakers’ Westminster Meeting House and arrested 6 young women peacefully meeting in a hired room to discuss support for Palestine.
This was the latest crackdown by the state ordered by Starmer, in a desperate attempt to stifle the massive wave of opposition from workers and youth to a Labour government that actively supports genocide in Gaza, while carrying out a massive super-austerity war on workers and youth in the UK.
The time is ripe for bringing down this Labour government by forcing the TUC general council to sack leaders who refuse to fight, replacing them with a leadership prepared to immediately call a general strike to bring down this reactionary Labour government and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
A workers government will immediately end all complicity with Zionist genocide, recognise the independent state of Palestine and provide all the weapons and support required for the victory of the Palestinian revolution.
This is the way forward!
