Bulletin No49 aout 2024 Hezbollah's response to the murders of Zionists
Following Hezbollah's recent attack on Israeli military targets on Sunday, August 25, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese movement, delivered a speech. He indicated that the Islamist group had launched its major attack in two stages. Hezbollah first launched " 340 Katyusha rockets" on 11 military targets in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Then, drones, launched from southern Lebanon, but also, for the first time, from the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, bordering Syria, targeted military targets in depth; Hezbollah targeted the Gilliott army base, located near Tel Aviv, and the Ein Shemer air force base, 70 kilometers from the border.
Hassan Nasrallah suggested that the attack was over: "If the result is satisfactory and achieves the desired objectives, we will consider that the response operation" to the assassination of Fouad Chokr "has been accomplished ," he said. He also denied Israel's "false allegations" about the destruction by the country on Sunday of "thousands of rocket launchers" in Lebanon and "the interception of thousands of rockets . "
On Sunday morning, the Israeli army claimed to have carried out "preemptive strikes" in Lebanon, to prevent the "large-scale attack" , after spotting signs of preparation by Hezbollah. "The claims that the resistance was going to launch 8,000 or 6,000 rockets and drones, and that [Israel] foiled them, these (...) are false allegations" , declared Hassan Nasrallah, adding that only "dozens of ramps were destroyed" .
As usual, Hezbollah targeted only military objectives. This suggests that Nasrallah's movement leaves nothing unpunished, responds to Israeli attacks but does not provoke a widening of the conflict, although this is always possible; it is not clear how far Netanyahu can go.
West Bank: The occupation army is still killing
In the occupied West Bank , Palestinians are also dying in attacks by the Israeli army. On Wednesday, August 28, ten people were killed in the northern West Bank, according to spokesmen for the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Two Palestinians were killed in the city of Jenin , four in a car bombing in a nearby village and four others in a refugee camp near the city of Toubas, said Ahmed Jibril, spokesman for the national relief society.
" The two dead from Jenin were transferred to Jenin hospital ," Ahmed Jibril said. " Four Palestinians killed in the bombing of their car south of Jenin and two (of the) Palestinians killed in the al-Faraa refugee camp were transferred to the Turkish hospital in Toubas ," he detailed. Ahmed Jibril added that he had so far counted " 15 wounded ."
" Two other Palestinians, brothers aged 13 and 17, were killed in a house in al-Faraa camp and [rescuers] cannot recover their bodies at the moment ," he continued. The Israeli army regularly prevents Palestinian ambulance services from accessing the dead and wounded during its raids.
As usual, the Zionist military are spreading their crude and mendacious propaganda by talking about "counter-terrorism operations" .
While incursions by the Israeli army or Israeli settlers into Palestinian areas in the West Bank are frequent, even daily, it is rarer to see coordinated armed attacks on several sites. In recent weeks, Israeli operations in the West Bank have focused on the northern part of the territory. Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, more than 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army or settlers.
The annexation of the West Bank is an increasingly pressing desire of Israeli officials. In mid-August, a hundred settlers attacked the village of Jit , between the major cities of Nablus and Qalqiliya. The White House declared at the time that settler attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank were "unacceptable and must stop" , adding that "Israeli authorities must take steps to protect all communities from harm, which includes intervening to end this violence and holding all perpetrators accountable" . In the aftermath, Paris, London, Berlin, among others, condemned what even Israeli President Isaac Herzog called a "pogrom". But all these speeches change nothing since Israel's imperialist allies continue to support the Zionist colonial state, notably by supplying it with weapons.
Islamic Jihad, particularly established in the refugee camps in the northern West Bank, has denounced an "open war by the Israeli occupier." Other Palestinian Resistance organizations, Hamas and the PFLP, regularly call on the occupied territory to "rise up ." The more time passes, the more it becomes evident that the Palestinians can only count on themselves to free themselves, with the help of Hezbollah or the Yemenis, of course, and on the international solidarity of the peoples.
The lure of ceasefire negotiations
Hamas, which speaks on behalf of all the resistance movements in Gaza, had sent a delegation to Cairo to learn about the famous proposals of Blinken, the US Secretary of State. The delegation left Cairo on the evening of August 25, said Ezzat Rishq, one of its leaders, as part of the umpteenth pseudo-attempt by the United States, flanked by Egypt and Qatar, to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas envoys "met with Egyptian and Qatari mediators who informed them of the results of the latest negotiations ," Rishq said. His movement's position remains unchanged: it wants, he reiterated, "a complete ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the return of displaced persons, the entry of humanitarian aid, reconstruction and an exchange agreement" between Palestinian prisoners and captives in Gaza. That is, the plan presented by Biden almost two months ago. But Israel does not want it and adds demands that the Palestinian Resistance cannot accept.
If Biden and Blinken really want a ceasefire, there is a simple way: stop supplying weapons to the Zionist genocidal state. As Verlaine said: “ And all the rest is literature. ”
Meanwhile, the genocide continues in Gaza
In mid-July, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published an article estimating that the total number of Palestinian civilian deaths caused directly and indirectly by Israeli attacks since October 2023 could be nearly five times higher than the official toll, and could reach “as many as 186,000 or even more. ”
Norwegian Mads Gilbert, who has worked extensively from Gaza over the years, including during the time Israel waged wars against the Palestinian enclave, recently highlighted the many preventable conditions that contribute to these “indirect” deaths , estimating the number of dead or imminent deaths. The death toll could be higher than 500,000. As causes of indirect deaths, he details “the lack of food entering Gaza and the destruction of agriculture, fisheries, poultry, dairy farms, etc. The lack of water, which leads to dehydration and infections. […] There are perhaps at least 10,000 cancer patients in Gaza. The Israeli army has bombed the Rantisi hospital for children with cancer and the Turkish Friendship hospital for adult cancer patients. They are not allowing cancer drugs to come in. ”
Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett discusses pregnant women who give birth in unsanitary conditions, their bodies weakened by hunger. She estimates that more than 50,000 children have been born in Gaza since October 7, 2023, adding that: "All these women need clean water and good food to be able to care for their children. There is a massive excess mortality among pregnant women who have difficult deliveries and need a cesarean section. "
A few months before the Lancet warning , in March, US lawyer Ralph Nader had also questioned what he believed to be a serious underestimation of the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza, writing: “Based on accounts from people on the ground, videos and photographs of episode after episode of killings, and the number of deaths resulting from the blockade or destruction of the essentials of life, a more likely estimate, in my view, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now, and the toll is accelerating by the hour. ”
Finally, in early July, Dr. Ahmad Yousaf, a Med Global physician working in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, said in an interview: “This ICU is full of diabetic patients who are getting a very treatable disease, but they are dying of the simplest thing: because insulin is not available, because they are not allowed to bring it in, and because there is no refrigeration. Like many amputees due to trauma, there are amputees with uncontrolled diabetes. […] The death toll from the Gaza Strip is much higher, I would say easily four, five, six times higher. Not to mention those who will die in the decades to come from both the psychiatric trauma and the physical disabilities associated with what has happened in the last nine months. ”
If a whole bunch of people like these journalists or doctors are interested in the fate of Gaza, if workers from all over the world are worried about the fate of the Gazans and the Palestinians in general, their fate does not move the Western imperialist leaders, nor the militants of Zionism.
Here is an example. Questioned on BFM TV on August 26 about the anti-Semitic attack in La Grande Motte, the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, obviously links it to the defenders of the Palestinian cause, to those who " wave a Palestinian flag ." This is neither new nor surprising. But, above all, he justifies the murders in Gaza. The journalist asks him: " I'm just trying to understand why it is so difficult to also condemn the crimes that are committed in Gaza ." He answers: " Because it is an act of war, it is not of the same order [...] Because there were 1,200 deaths and Israel has the obligation to ensure that its citizens no longer risk that [...] It is a war between Israel and Hamas, not between Israel and the Palestinians and everyone will be very happy for Israel to finish the job. " Will he be prosecuted for condoning terrorism or even condoning war crimes? This is highly doubtful, given how little indignation his words arouse among politicians who are so quick to denounce anti-Semitism.
To close this chapter, let us call upon the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich and his poem Passers-by among passing words :
"You who pass among fleeting words
You supply the sword, we supply the blood
You provide the steel and fire, we provide the flesh
You supply the tear gas, we supply the rain
But the sky and the air are the same for you and for us
So take your share of our blood, and go.”
In conclusion
We continue and will continue, tirelessly, to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as free access for humanitarians throughout the Gaza Strip, and the complete withdrawal of the occupying forces from the enclave. But this will not be enough.
A just peace means the dismantling of the colonies, the return of the refugees and an independent Palestinian state. What prevents such a peace is the existence of a colonial state. The workers of Israel cannot be free if they do not break with Zionism, if they continue to find themselves objectively in the camp of the colonizers. Solidarity with Palestine cannot be satisfied with general phrases about peace. We need a state where all inhabitants enjoy the same rights and can live together, regardless of their origin, in this case, a democratic Palestinian state. Similarly, the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people does not need compassion, but real political support and actions of internationalist solidarity. And for France, where the Revolutionaries, as elsewhere, must first fight their capitalists, this begins with the political struggle against the support of French imperialism for the Zionist colonial state.
This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party intends to continue to bring together all those who want an immediate ceasefire to end the massacre of Palestinians and who speak out for peace. For us, this means supporting the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement, especially after the assassination of one of its leaders: an immediate end to Zionist military aggression, the right of return for refugees and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.