On Saturday morning, October 7, the Palestinian people opened a new chapter in their courageous resistance. The Hamas political party launched an astonishing coordinated action called “Al-Aqsa Storm” on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip.
In an air and ground resistance offensive with youth at the forefront shouting “Enough is enough!” Palestinian forces infiltrated Zionist settlements and shot down dozens of the occupation forces’ military personnel. There are reports of 70 dead and around 500 wounded. They also reclaimed land from which their grandparents were violently expelled. These Israeli settlements were built on the remains of Palestinians and their villages that were wiped out in the Nakba (the catastrophe that was the formation of the racist State of Israel on May 15, 1948 through planned ethnic cleansing).
As part of this heroic deed, the Palestinians launched 5,000 missiles from Gaza. On the ground, they paraded an Israeli tank which they had seized, and captured Zionist soldiers who can be exchanged for Palestinian political prisoners (today there are 5,200 Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, including 33 women and 170 children). They also broke part of the fence that forms the murderous Zionist blockade of Gaza, which has lasted 16 years and imprisons 2.4 million Palestinians.
Settlers with foreign passports fled through airports and deserts, and Israel’s criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We are at war.” In just a few hours of Zionist bombardment, in typical collective punishment of Gaza, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed, including women, children and the elderly. This marks another massive bombing of the narrow strip.
But the Palestinian people have a tradition of transforming spilled blood into fuel for their heroic resistance. It is not a choice, it is a just, exemplary, and courageous struggle for national liberation, which has been going on for more than 75 years.
Obviously, the Zionist massacre that is being repeated in Gaza has the support of US imperialism, and the complicity of the United Nations and governments around the world.They have collectively and quickly condemned the Palestinian resistance by once again falsely labeling it as an act of terrorism.
The Palestinian people, in their internationalist struggle, rightly resent observing “two weights and two measures” with respect to their struggle against Zionist colonization and the war promoted by the murderous Putin in Ukraine. We stand with the resistance of both the Palestinian and Ukrainian people who are fighting for national liberation.
These same governments have been silent in the face of the ongoing Nakba, which in 2023 alone has killed more than 250 Palestinians. Although a Palestinian is killed every day under the occupation, this fact has not elicited a response from their diplomacies. At most there is talk of “both sides,” a discourse which ignores the fact that this is a question of an aggressor and colonizer (Israel) and a people under colonization, occupation, and apartheid (Palestinians). This hypocritical diplomacy caters to governments in their business dealings with Zionist apartheid, including the importation of military technologies.
This is the case of Brazil, who uses the same weapons in its genocide of the poor, indigenous, and black people who live on the peripheries. Governments like Lula’s, which claim to be “friends of the Palestinians,” then go on to shamelessly equate oppressor and oppressed and are quick to chorus the worldwide condemnation of the Palestinian resistance. They demand the resumption of the “peace of the graveyards” agreements in their comfortable maintenance of complicity with apartheid. Meanwhile, in countries like Lebanon, Arabs came out in demonstrations of unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance. We too are on the side of the Palestinians.
A day before the action of the heroic Palestinian resistance, which demonstrated the fragility of Israel despite its place as the world’s fourth military power, the occupation forces killed four Palestinians near Nablus in the occupied West Bank in the villages of Shufa and Huwara. The latter has faced a wave of pogroms since the beginning of 2023, with a violent invasion of settlers setting fire to Palestinian homes and vehicles. For the fifth consecutive day, in the middle of a Jewish religious holiday, other Zionists broke into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Judaization of the Old City of Jerusalem has continued at full steam.
All of the Zionist colonizer’s brutal violence has led the youth, called ” the children of Oslo,” into the armed resistance. They are called “the children of Oslo” because they were born under the sign of the disastrous Oslo Accords, signed 30 years ago between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. This deal was brokered by US imperialism, and for them has meant they have never had a single day of peace in their lives. They are also suffering at the hands of the occupation administrator, the Palestinian Authority, in its security cooperation with Israel.
Hamas’ coordinated action, with its message to the world “Enough is enough!” has taken place in this context. The Palestinian people remain on the verge of an intifada (popular uprising). It is essential that the oppressed Arab peoples in neighboring countries join this movement against their tyrants who have normalized relations with the racist state of Israel and prevented the national liberation of the Palestinian people.
From the IWL and its parties around the world, we declare our unconditional support for the heroic and historic Palestinian resistance. We call on all oppressed and exploited people to show solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people, by holding demonstrations and, above all, by joining the central campaign of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel. In this sense, we demand that governments around the world recognize that the Zionist regime is one of apartheid and immediately break all agreements with the colonial and murderous state of Israel, especially by promoting a military embargo.
Free Palestine from the River to the Sea! Long Live the Heroic Resistance of the Palestinian People!
