Full ceasefire, peace, two states!

As Solidarity goes to press, the Gaza ceasefire starting 24 November, to exchange hostages taken on 7 October with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, has been extended two days to 7am Thursday 30 November. There is talk of a new extension, but probably a new Israeli offensive will be raging by the time this paper reaches most readers.

Despite the Israeli military and Hamas accusing each other of impeding aid deliveries and breaking the ceasefire, it has held. But the respite is meagre. A prime factor is Israel’s insistence on aid going only via the crossing from Egypt, not via a crossing from Israel. Free the hostages! End the siege!

The World Health Organisation said on 27 Nov that extra deaths from disease due to shortages of water, food, sanitation, shelter, and healthcare will probably come to exceed deaths from bombing and gunfire as the Israeli ground war restarts (and Hamas’s rocket attacks, now few, and its efforts to trigger wider war from Hezbollah and the West Bank). The US is scrabbling to restrain the killing and new forced population movements.

Although Human Rights Watch, very critical of Israel, has concluded that the Al-Ahli hospital explosion on 17 October was probably a stray missile rather than an Israeli bomb, some 15,000 have been killed, and the estimates from Israeli authorities of Hamas military killed have been between 1,000 and 5,000, a clear minority. The war is massacring civilians; it will not destroy Hamas; it will raise new recruits for it, and feed cycles of vengeance.

The US and other governments have been pushed into talk of restarting pressure for a “two states” deal. Our chief job is to “say what is” about the centrality of the forces on the ground, in Israel and the Palestinian territories, such as Standing Together, which can push to shape things from below for peace, mutual recognition of rights, and workers’ unity. Two states: a real independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel!

Workers’ unity!