Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, October 10, 2023
A full-scale war is raging between Israel and Palestinian resistance fighters of Hamas. There is urgent need for the United Nations to take steps to ensure that the hostilities end immediately.
More than 2,000 Israelis and Palestinians have already died, and many thousands more injured. Following the launch of the surprise attack, ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ by the Palestinian resistance fighters of Hamas on October 7, Israel has launched a massive aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip targeting the civilian population. It is preparing to launch a land invasion of Gaza. Israel has announced the complete blockade of the Gaza strip — cutting off food, medicines, water, fuel and electricity supply — to the two million Palestinian people for whom this is their home. This is a war crime according to international law.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has ominously declared that his country will turn Gaza into a desert island. This is a declaration that his government is ready to commit genocide. Israel must be stopped in its tracks before it carries out this genocide.
The US imperialists and their NATO allies are supporting the Israeli government and blaming the Palestinian resistance fighters for the current war. They are fully backing Israel, as well as rushing in arms to enable it to carry out its genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people. This is extremely dangerous for the people of Israel as well as Palestine. It holds the possibility of the war spreading to involve many more countries.
The attack launched by Hamas was in retaliation to the systematic killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza. It needs to be seen in the context of the inhuman air, sea and land blockade imposed by the Israeli government on the Palestinian people living in the Gaza strip since 2007. The Gaza Strip is walled in on all sides like a prison. Israel has launched four protracted military assaults on Gaza: in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Thousands of Palestinians, including children have been killed, and tens of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and office buildings have been destroyed.
In recent years, the Netanyahu government has stepped up its program of establishing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, by forcibly displacing Palestinian families from their homes. It has done so even though international law forbids this. About 7.5 lakh Israeli settlers are now living in about 250 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel has been sending groups of provocateurs to take over the historic Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem. Its armed forces brutally attack and murder Palestinians who defend their land, their homes, and their places of worship.
The people of Palestine have been waging a heroic struggle for their right to exist as a nation. Israel has been pursuing a policy of trying to destroy the nation of Palestine. It has refused to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and the blockade of Gaza.
The Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations has defended the resistance as an understandable response to Israel’s longstanding war on Palestinians: “Israel cannot wage a full-scale war on a nation, its people, its land, its holy sites and expect peace in exchange…The Palestinian people will be free one day or another, one way or another,” he said.
The United Nations must ensure the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people for a homeland. It must ensure an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories and ensure the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution for a two state solution. It must ensure the establishment of the state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders, with its capital as East Jerusalem. Only this can ensure lasting peace in the region.