The bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza is neither the first nor the last mass killing of Palestinians by the Israeli government.
The Israeli military and paramilitary forces, in their continued occupation and displacement of the Palestinian people over the past year, have killed hundreds of Palestinians, including 50 children. The Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths and capture of non-combatants and Israeli soldiers, has triggered a fresh wave of rocket attacks and bombings on residential areas in Gaza by Israel.
The current war in Gaza cannot be evaluated separately from its historical background. Over the past seventy years, the people living in this region have been systematically oppressed, displaced, and had their homes and livelihoods occupied by the Israeli government. Israel’s policy of settlement construction and the intensification of Jewish immigration to this country have necessitated the widespread displacement of Palestinian residents in these areas.
The displacement of the Palestinian people has always been accompanied by violence and massacres. Clearly, a government formed on the basis of ethnic and religious supremacy does not value the lives and existence of other humans. The response of the people residing in these areas to the ongoing occupation by the Israeli military and paramilitary forces has been severely suppressed, creating a backdrop for the growth of different military and political factions among the Palestinians.
Following peace negotiations between the Arab nationalist forces in the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government, which did not lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the Israeli government intensified its expansion and occupation of other areas, in violation of international treaties. This, in turn, led to the growth and spread of political and military movements, some of which today constitute part of the challenges faced by the Palestinian people in their quest for liberation and social justice. Forces like Hamas, which attribute their growth and expansion to the suppression of labour activists and radicals in Gaza and power struggles among various governments in the region, continue to engage in the just struggle of the Palestinian people.
Throughout all these years, unconditional support from the United States, the European Union, and their allies for the militarism and repression of the Israeli government has enabled this apartheid government to not only intensify its suppression and mass killings of the organized Palestinian people, regardless of UN resolutions and international treaties, but also to arm itself with the most destructive and advanced weapons for mass destruction. The unwavering financial, military, technological, and political aid provided to Israel by the NATO bloc in all these years has laid the groundwork for the current massacre and genocide in Gaza.
Despite the mainstream Western media’s efforts and the unconditional support of the NATO bloc for the killing of the people of Gaza in recent days, this time, many people and political and social movements worldwide, especially in European and American countries, have taken to the streets in support of the people of Gaza and demanded the halt of Israel’s military slaughter machine.
Contrary to the expectations of governments and forces supporting Israel, this time, millions of people have taken to the streets without any illusion of supporting resistance forces like Hamas and Hezbollah, solely with the goal of supporting the Palestinian people and stopping Israel’s crimes.
Undoubtedly, in the current changing and transformative global circumstances, global power and solidarity in support of the Palestinian people and in opposition to genocide and the apartheid government of Israel can be a decisive factor in stopping the massacre of the people of Gaza.
We, as a part of the workers’ movement in Iran, declare our support for the besieged people of Gaza. Along with the global movement, we strive to swiftly halt the bombings and massacres in Gaza and the attacks by Hamas on the people of Israel.
