Ceasefire now!

Picture: Picasa 2.0

On 28 October, the Israeli parliament passed new laws severely restricting the ability of Unrwa, the United Nations agency responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees, to operate. The laws ban Unrwa from operating altogether in Israel and Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, and ban contact between Israeli officials and Unrwa staff, making its operations in Gaza almost impossible. With no alternative infrastructure for the provision and distribution of aid in place, Israel’s repression of Unwra must be seen as an intensification of a deliberate policy of starvation of the Gazan people.

And Israel’s savagely destructive military war on the people of Gaza continues. The strangulation of the north of the enclave is exacerbating hunger and lack of health care, which must be urgently addressed via massive increases in aid provision. In Lebanon, Israeli bombing continues to claim civilian lives and destroy civilian infrastructure. The effective non-functioning of the Lebanese state means aid and reconstruction efforts are minimal, risking similar ongoing homelessness and health crises to those seen in Gaza.

An apparent terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, praised by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad but directly claimed by neither group, on 27 October killed one Israeli and injured 30.

Struck

On Saturday 26 October, Israel struck several sites in Iran, killing four Iranian soldiers. The targets include sites linked to missile manufacture and to Iran’s energy industry, including its nuclear programme.

The attack is a further escalation in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies and allies, a clash between regional imperialist powers. There is no progressive content to the bellicosity of either towards the other. For the forces capable of forging a different future, we look to workers and women’s movements in Iran, who have risen up against the mullahs’ state, and anti-war and anti-occupation movements in Israel which have been confronting Netanyahu’s regime, propped up by fascistic leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement in Gaza have resumed in Qatar. Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said in a speech on Sunday 27 October that: “Not all objectives can be achieved through military operations alone… To realise our moral duty to bring our hostages home, we will have to make painful concessions.” These two developments have restored some flickering hopes that a deal to end the immediate slaughter in Gaza could be reached.

According to recent polling, 73% of Israelis support a ceasefire. 51% want early elections, and 55% regard Netanyahu as a “bad” leader.