the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 19, 2024
This article is translated from the August 13 issue, #2924 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
After ten months of war against the Palestinian population in Gaza, on August 10 the Israeli army bombed a school near Gaza City, killing more than ninety people.
Faced with the condemnation expressed, at least in words, by some representatives of its allies, the Israeli general staff put forward a vague argument, citing the “high probability” of the elimination, during the strike, of a Hamas commander located in this school, described as a “command center,” and the presence among the dead of “nineteen Hamas members.”
The school, the 21st to be bombed by the Israeli army in five weeks, was home to many Gazan families, who had been driven out of their homes and apartments and were constantly forced by a simple text message to evacuate the refugee camp or neighborhood that the army had been ordered to sweep, in search of hypothetical terrorists. As a result, many of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants wandered from north to south and south to north, abandoning their belongings, either to escape the bombardments or on the orders of the Israeli authorities. "Some people didn’t move when the last evacuation order was issued, because they don’t know where to go. So, they prefer to stay where they are. I’m sure several of them died in those blocks," a young father told Médiapart.
This umpteenth murderous attack speaks volumes about the state of mind of Netanyahu’s government, which says it is ready to enter into truce negotiations. After assassinating the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was leading the negotiations in the shadow of Qatar, and at the same time eliminating a military leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Israeli government is constantly launching new provocations. The day after the attack on the school, it ordered the thousands of inhabitants of the northern districts of Khan Yunis to evacuate before a ground operation, which they know only too well will bring new disasters. These are the preliminaries to the negotiations announced by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar for August 15.
Western condemnations are hardly likely to affect the war policy of Netanyahu’s government. The British Foreign Secretary referred to the Palestinians and Israel back to back: "Hamas must stop endangering civilians. Israel must comply with international humanitarian law," and while the French government condemned the attacks on schools, the White House expressed its concern ... while reinforcing its military presence in the region, which already includes an aircraft carrier and F-35 fighters, with 4,000 additional Marines and twelve warships. The U.S. Navy cruises off the coasts of Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. A nuclear missile submarine is also planned. All this presence is not there to protect the population of Gaza, but to guarantee the Israeli leaders that they can continue their provocations, including in Gaza.
The Palestinian population, crushed under the bombs, but also the Israelis kept in a state of war, have no reason to derive from the policy of Western leaders any hope of seeing the conflict come to an end.