1. 5 were martyred after US-funded Zionist warplanes bombed the Abu Shakyan family home in Camp C, Nusseirat. 2. Palestine solidarity march in Al-Sabeen Square, Yemen, 26 July. 3. an IOF military jeep was burned in the town of Artas, Bethlehem, after it was targeted by resistant youth with Molotovs during the forces’ invasion of the town. Photos from Resistance News Network.

Escalations in Palestine

As the Palestinian resistance develops and reveals new dimensions, Daire Ní Chnáimh collates recent events and the multiple interlocked escalations they represent.

Two days ago, Netanyahu stood lying before US Congress and received a standing ovation, in what will go down in history as a haunting image of the Western liberal order clapping for genocide. The ICJ has issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s ‘presence in the occupied Palestinian territory [is] unlawful,’ and specifically called for a halt to its illegal presence in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Unfortunately, there is no effective mechanism to enforce international law when the US disagrees with it. With the genocide in Gaza heightening, all forces of the Palestinian resistance and its allies have escalated in recent weeks and drawn closer together. Whilst things are moving very fast, this report collates some of the recent context up to Friday 26 July.

As Tom Gann recently wrote, left media in Britain has been failing to broadcast the work being done by the resistance movements in the Middle East. Credit is due to those who collate the Resistance News Network for piecing together English translations from multiple fronts of the anti-imperialist struggle.

Beijing Declaration

After three days of talks in China, the Beijing Declaration to End Palestinian National Division was signed by 14 Palestinian factions, including Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, DFLP and Fatah. They have agreed to form a temporary government over the 1967 borders of Palestine. While China’s mediation is an important aspect of the declaration, and Egypt, Algeria, China and Russia have pledged support, it can only be enacted by the Palestinian groups involved. A key point in the agreement was that it would be Palestinian groups who next govern Palestine, flatly rejecting talk of a multinational ‘peacekeeping’ force entering Gaza, comprised of Arab states which have accepted degrees of normalisation with Israel.

Some signatories have spoken of forming an immediate emergency committee. The delegates agreed a commitment to resist further displacement of Palestinians, to bring in humanitarian aid, and to work to lift the siege on Gaza and the West Bank. Throughout its language, the statement rejected the legitimacy of ‘Israel’, given that all negotiations with the occupation have failed.

As Omar Karmi details, agreements like this have come to nothing in the past. PFLP Bureau member Marwan Abdul Aal commented that ‘the success of any political declaration lies in having an implementation mechanism, and there must be a will to execute what has been agreed upon.’ Despite serious tactical disagreements between the factions who signed, the worsening genocide may drive the factions to pull together.

The declaration arrived at a moment when the Zionist entity is continuing ceaseless attacks against Palestinians, in their homes and in camps, prisons, schools and hospitals. On 13 July, the Israeli Occupying Forces committed a major massacre in the most densely populated area of displaced people in Mawasi Khan Younis. 71 were martyred and 289 were injured, reportedly by 2000-pound American MK84 bombs. On the same day, warplanes bombed Al-Abyad mosque in the Shati’ refugee camp in the Northern Gaza Strip, in an attack that’s been called ‘the prayer hall massacre’.

Most notably, the Zionist entity is making incursions into the West Bank and increasing its robbery of land. It is demolishing hundreds of houses and buildings in Al Quds. On 17 July, it seized 119 acres of Palestinian land west of Ramallah, including the villages of Shibtin, Deir Ammar and Deir Qaddis. It has been invading the town of Tulkarem with bulldozers, but this has been met with clashes which succeeded in putting a bulldozer out of action whilst it damaged a home. The fight has been ongoing in the last few days, with the IOF opening fire on Palestinian ambulances which tried to reach the site of airstrikes. The Israeli Minister of War Yoav Gallant announced on 21 July the removal of restrictions on the use of military drones in the West Bank, and hours later, a drone strike assassinated 3 fighters who had been defending the Tulkarem camp.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to target Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank, in its collaboration with the Zionist regime. Over 9,700 prisoners are being detained by the Zionist regime, with widespread reports of severe torture and medical crimes inflicted on prisoners. But the new IOF moves in the West Bank have already begun to marshal resistance forces there, and a new phase in the struggle is beginning with open fire on IOF vehicles as they enter West Bank towns.

The resistance develops

On Friday 19 July, Ansarallah in Yemen launched the new Yaffa drone, which bypassed all Israel’s anti-drone technology, to hit ‘occupied Yaffa (Tel Aviv)’. Given how much the Zionist entity hypes up its anti-drone technology, this is a severe blow to its confidence, and Ansarallah have pledged further hits.

In a response to the Yaffa attack, Israeli aircraft targeted the city of Hodeidah, where they bombed Yemen’s main port and its oil facilities, with 6 martyred, 3 missing, and 83 wounded. This heightens the chance that Yemen and ‘Israel’ are now directly at war. After the Hodeidah attack, thousands of Yemenis came out to the streets to show their continued solidarity with Palestine. Further, Ansarallah continues to target ships in the Red Sea and drastically curtail the possibilities of Israeli trade. The Iraqi resistance has targeted the occupied Haifa port. Zionist settlements in Palestine have been targeted by Hezbollah, and Hezbollah and Iraqi rockets are also striking the occupied Golan Heights in Syria.

Hamas has leaked dossiers from the Palestinian resistance’s cyber units, which contain detailed intelligence on thousands of Zionist soldiers and their ranks. Hezbollah released aerial footage of the Zionist Ramat David airbase, filmed with its Hudhud drone. Again, the fact that another drone has gone undetected in the hyper-securitised Israeli airbase, will rattle the nerves of the occupation. The extent of the resistance intelligence operations have been underestimated up until now.

US presence in the Middle East is being tolerated less and less. On 19 October, US forces were attacked at two of their military bases in Syria, on their warship USS Carney off of Yemen, and at the Ain Al-Assad base in Iraq. From January, the Iraqi resistance Kataeb Hezbollah announced a four-month halt to its operations against American bases. This was to await the withdrawal of American forces from the country. But on 16 July, with US bases still functional, the resistance targeted the Ain Al-Assad military base in western Iraq again, it announced it would escalate its attacks on US bases in response to the Mawasi massacre, and today the Ain Al-Assad base was targeted again by missiles and drones. Also today, there was a suspected rocket attack on a US military base in eastern Syria – the Conoco oil field base, which is a hub for managing US forces, anti-drone systems, and reconnaissance aircraft.

Israeli politicians seek closer ties with the US, particularly the Trump administration which they expect to give more support than the Democrats. Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stated – in a speech provocatively made at the Al-Aqsa Mosque – that he rejects the proposed deal for release of hostages. He announced his intention ‘to continue to victory, to increase military pressure, to cut off their fuel, to win!’ and in another meeting commented that ‘making a reckless deal now would not only endanger Israel but also undermine Trump and bolster Biden.’ Thus, he has made it clear that movement will be slow before the US election, as they are relying on a Trump administration to solidify support. However, given Kamala Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel so far, the alliance with the US is not in question. A greater danger is the escalations we might see in US activity if Trump regained power.

Health crisis

The prowess of the resistance notwithstanding, the huge human price of the conflict grows and grows. Clean water has become a rarity. Gaza has gone 15 consecutive days without desalination plants in operation, due to lack of fuel. Hospitals are running out of fuel to power essential medical equipment. Cooking gas has been prohibited from entry since October 7th. This week the IOF stormed the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and bombed it again, terrorising staff and patients.

On 18 July, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that the virus which causes polio was found in Gaza’s sewage water. As the ministry stated: ‘The severe overcrowding, combined with the scarcity and contamination of available water by sewage, the accumulation of tons of garbage, and the occupation’s prevention of the entry of cleaning materials, creates an environment conducive to the spread of various epidemics.’ An outbreak of polio in the crowded conditions of the Gaza Strip would have devastating consequences.

Further, in its sitting on Monday 22 July, the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill that would declare the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a ‘terrorist organisation.’ UNRWA has had thousands of staff undertaking lifesaving work in Gaza, since 1949. The Knesset move seeks to delegitimise its work and cut its international funding, after months of IOF attacks on UNRWA’s schools, students and staff. It is crystal clear who the terrorist is. A ceasefire is more important now than ever, and could avert a mass regional war that seems to be drawing nearer.

The role for socialists

The naming of the Yaffa drone brings to light the reality that is coming into view: the end of the occupation of Palestine. The unity of resistance groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Yemen, are presenting a coordinated front causing major and frequent damage to the occupation. Videos of Palestinian resistance fighters tying ‘Iraq’, ‘Yemen’ and ‘Lebanon’ to their mortars are a salute to the feeling of internationalism across the resistance movement. In Britain, support for Palestinian self-determination needs to be accompanied with organisation to break ties with the Zionist entity on all fronts – cultural, economic and military. It was reported that 25 F-35 warplanes carried out the Israeli attack on Hodeidah in Yemen – which means roughly 80 manufacturing sites in Britain are directly complicit in that imperial aggression, as well as the site of Westminster. Just this Wednesday, activists shut down Leonardo in Edinburgh and the Department of Business and Trade in London. The launch of Palestine Action Germany is welcome news.

The constant fight and struggle of the decolonial resistance forces is shining a light on the imperialists today. Here in the imperial core, where every country has a billion-dollar trade with Israel (even, gallingly, Ireland) the onus is on socialists to organise across multiple tactics to disavow and prevent colonial aggressions. The new ICJ decision gives cover for a renewed effort in all countries to pressure governments to call for a ceasefire, cut ties with the Israeli regime, and to institute a full arms embargo. In the meantime, it remains up to the increasingly unified resistance forces to defend the threatened lives in Palestine.

August 2, 2024, will be an International Day of Support for Gaza and Prisoners. As the preparatory committee state, this is ‘based on the principle that Gaza and the prisoners are the foundation of our unity and the path to our victory.’ Among other demands, they call for ‘a comprehensive military embargo on ‘Israel,’ including the export, import, and transfer of weapons, military equipment, and dual-use items, as well as ending all other forms of military cooperation (training, joint research, investments, etc.).’ This will be a day to strategically advance the fight to stop arming Israel.