Israel massacred 70 Palestinians in two days of intense bombing this week in Gaza, as it continues killing on a near daily basis despite the “ceasefire”.
The dead included 17 people killed when it bombed families sheltering in tents in Khan Younis, and 16 massacred in an attack on two buildings in Gaza City. The majority of those killed were women and children.
Israel has now killed 312 Palestinians since the ceasefire officially began.
It continues to block basic food and medical supplies for Gaza’s population. Only around half of the 600 trucks of aid daily Israel agreed to deliver under the ceasefire agreement are being allowed in.
Caroline Seguin of Doctors Without Borders says that “many Palestinians are still living in makeshift tents and without access to running water and electricity, next to piles of rubbish and overflowing sewage”.
This comes as the UN Security Council has backed Donald Trump’s plan for new colonial overlords to run Gaza—including the aim of wiping out Hamas.
A so called “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump will be given complete control over Gaza, including aid deliveries and decisions about any reconstruction. It’s not clear who the US will appoint to the board, but figures such as war criminal Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister and one of the butchers of Iraq, have been suggested.
Legal experts have compared this to the colonial “trusteeships” that legalised the imperialist powers’ control over their colonies after the Second World War.
The Palestinian population will have no real say in Gaza’s affairs, let alone the self-determination they deserve. The only fig-leaf of Palestinian involvement is the pledge to set up a committee of Palestinian technocrats to run civil and administrative functions.
The motion at the UN also authorises an international “stabilisation force” to operate in Gaza. This would have the explicit aim of “demilitarising” Gaza through disarming Hamas and would gradually take over as Israeli troops withdraw. It is still unclear which countries would agree to send troops.
Hamas has refused to disarm, rightly noting that “resisting the occupation by all means is a legitimate right guaranteed by international laws and conventions”.
It has rejected the stabilisation force in Gaza, saying the Trump plan “strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favour of the occupation”.
This is not a plan for peace, but for ongoing occupation designed to get rid of Hamas and any resistance to Israeli domination.
Regional rivalry
China and Russia, who both had the power to veto the plan at the UN, refused to do so.
A joint statement signed by Arab governments from Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as other Muslim nations in Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey all threw their support behind Trump’s plan. But the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have indicated they won’t be part of the stabilisation force, wanting to avoid any clash with Hamas.
Underlying all this is jockeying among the Arab states as they vie for regional influence.
All through the Gaza genocide, the Arab rulers have refused to lift a finger to stop Israel’s crimes. Instead they have cracked down on Palestine solidarity protests and worked covertly with Israel to protect it against missile attacks from Iran. These regimes collaborate with Western imperialism in order to maintain their own rule.
Trump secured their backing for his “peace plan” with the flimsiest of concessions. The US agreed to acknowledge that a “pathway” towards a Palestinian state “may” be possible in future, but only after “redevelopment” in Gaza has advanced and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has carried out further reforms demanded by the West.
The PA is a notoriously corrupt body that polices the West Bank on behalf of Israel by crushing any resistance to its occupation. Predictably, the PA has embraced the Gaza plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted he will oppose any form of Palestinian state from ever happening. His far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir even said Israel should assassinate PA officials if it moves forward.
The US is planning to permanently divide Gaza along the “yellow line” that separates the 58 per cent of the Gaza Strip Israel occupies and the rest of the territory, US military documents obtained by The Guardian show.
Any reconstruction would be restricted to the Israeli-occupied zone in an attempt to force civilians out of areas with a continued Hamas presence.
Israel could then continue to bomb the rest of Gaza whenever it chooses—as it has been doing ever since the “ceasefire” began in October.
The genocide in Gaza continues. We have to keep fighting for sanctions against the Israeli terror state to cut off the supply of weapons and trade on which Israel depends.
By James Supple
