The genocide of the Palestinian people carried out by Israel with the full backing of the US and its European allies, continues without letup.
Confident that it will not be made to pay for its crimes against humanity, the Israeli state is threatening the very existence of the Palestinians as a people.
Gaza, with a population of about 2 million, has been turned into a rubble. Hospitals, schools and refugees camps have not been spared. Libraries, historical monuments, and places of worship have been destroyed. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been turned into refugees. 1.5 million of these refugees are cramped into a small town called Rafah at the Egyptian border. The Israeli army is threatening to lay waste to Rafah. The United Nation has warned that invading Rafah will be the final “nail in the coffin” of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip.
Already, in this genocidal war launched by Israel, more than 31,000 people have been murdered, the vast majority of them being women and children. The death toll includes at least 13,000 children. Nearly a lakh people have been injured. Tens of thousands are reported missing.
Israeli troops have brazenly shared videos in which they proudly show how they are shooting and killing innocent Palestinian people.
Israel has deliberately pushed the Palestinian people living in Gaza into starvation. It has prevented the supply of food. The aid trucks carrying food into Gaza are few and far between, and totally inadequate. People are foraging for food under rubble of destroyed buildings. They are being forced to eat animal feed. The number of children dying of starvation is rising. Even aid workers are being targeted by Israeli bombings and gunfire.
On February 29 at 4.30 in the morning, the Israeli army opened fire on hundreds of people who were waiting since the previous night for trucks carrying food to arrive. As people fled from the scene, Israeli tanks deliberately ran over the dead and wounded who lay on the ground. At least 112 people were cold bloodedly killed, and 750 people seriously injured in this massacre.
Deliberate Policy of starving Palestinians to death
The February 29 massacre happened one day after Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told the United Nations Security Council that more than 500,000, or one in four people in Gaza, were at the risk of famine. One in every six children below the age of two was acutely malnourished.
Gaza does not have its own source of food. It has always depended on food supplies from outside. Even before October 7, 2023, Israel has pursued the policy of keeping the food supplies to Gaza to the minimum level so that people were always on the brink of starvation. Before October 7, 500 trucks of food used to enter Gaza every day. For three weeks after that, Israel stopped the entry of all food trucks. Following international uproar, and the demand that Israel allow humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid trucks into Gaza. This amounts to less than 90 trucks a day.
“The risk of famine is being fueled by the inability to bring critical food supplies into Gaza in sufficient quantities, and the almost impossible operating conditions faced by our staff on the ground,” Skau said.
Targeting the UNRWA is part of the genocidal plan
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is the major international agency that has been working among the Palestinian refugees living in occupied Palestinian territory and neighbouring countries. The UNRWA is responsible for 702 schools providing education to 500,000 children and students. It runs medical clinics as well. It has been carrying on its work ever since the state of Israel drove out 7.5 lakh Palestinians as refugees from their own homeland in May 1948, in what Palestinians call the NAKBA.
The UNRWA’s proclaimed mission is to support displaced Palestinians until they could return to their homes. This right to return has been denied by Israel to many generations of Palestinians, even though it has been affirmed by numerous UN resolutions since 1948.
Israel, with US backing wants to end the mandate of the UNRWA. Towards this end it labeled false charges against the UNRWA, alleging that some of its workers participated in the attack on Southern Israel on October 7. As if on cue, the US led nine of its allies including Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and Switzerland to immediately stop funding the UNRWA. These were amongst the main funders of the UNRWA. More than a month later, Israel has still not offered any evidence to prove its accusation. The work of the UNRWA is coming to a halt for lack of funds, as only a handful of countries including Belgium, Norway, Ireland and Saudi Arabia have pledged to continue funding.
The strangulation of the UNRWA is part of the genocidal plan of Israel against the Palestinian nation. Not only has the UNRWA been a lifeline for Palestinian children, it has also been a source of livelihood for tens of thousands of Palestinians who work for it.
Peoples and countries condemn Israel and its imperialist backers
People all over the world have come out onto the streets demanding an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.
They are not only condemning Israel’s war to exterminate the Palestinian nation, but are also calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. They are demanding that the US and other countries stop arming Israel. They are demanding imposition of economic sanctions on Israel.
South Africa charged Israel with committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The case put forth by South Africa was so strong that despite the US and its imperialist allies brazenly defending Israel, the ICJ ruled in the end of January that Israel may be “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza. It called on Israel to refrain from such activities. However, Israel has continued its genocidal war because it has the backing of the US and its European allies.
On March 1, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced that Nicaragua has sued Germany for arming and funding Israel and cutting aid to the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA). It has asked the ICJ to order emergency measures to force Germany to stop military aid to Israel and restart funding to the UNRWA.
“By sending military equipment and now defunding UNRWA which provides essential support to the civilian population, Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide,” Nicaragua said in its filing, citing the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war in the occupied Palestinian territories. Germany is a key ally of Israel, and is one of its biggest arms suppliers alongside the United States. It provides 28% of Israel’s military imports.
The US is the biggest funder of the Israeli armed forces, providing $ 3 billion in aid annually. The US is debating an additional $ 14 billion to support Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Some 68% of Israel’s weapons imports over 2013-2022 came from the US. The United Kingdom, Canada, France and Australia among others also provide military support to Israel.
On March 1, more than 200 parliamentarians from thirteen countries which provide arms to Israel called on their governments to stop selling arms to Israel. “Our bombs and bullets must not be used to kill, maim, and dispossess Palestinians,” they said.
The legislators declared: “We will take immediate and coordinated action in our respective legislatures to stop our countries from arming Israel.” The legislators are mainly from France, Australia, Spain, Turkey and Brazil. Legislators from Germany, Portugal, the US, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, Belgium and the UK were also signatories to the call.
Under popular pressure, some countries have stopped arming Israel. Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Japan have stopped military cooperation with Israel. Columbia has announced that it has stopped purchase of arms from Israel.
In the Israeli capital Tel Aviv, people have courageously come onto the streets, braving chauvinist war hysteria, condemning their government for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. They have compared the war of their government against the Palestinian people with that of Nazi Germany against the Jewish people.
The peoples of the world are in one voice calling for an immediate end to the genocidal war against the Palestinian people. The vast majority of member states of the United Nations are demanding this. The Non Aligned Movement, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League have unanimously called for a ceasefire.
The US and its closest allies — Germany, Britain and France amongst others — have backed Israel to the hilt, and prevented every effort of other member countries of the United Nations to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people. The US has led its allies in violating all the principles on which the United Nations was founded. The utter hypocrisy of these imperialist powers when they speak about human rights and about a “rules based world order” has been exposed in front of the peoples and countries of the whole world.
The Palestinian people have shown through their heroic and indomitable struggle of over 75 years that they cannot be crushed. The peoples of the world have shown over the past five months that they stand as one with the Palestinian people in their just struggle.
The Indian people join the world’s peoples in calling for an immediate halt to Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.