Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom in Israel had one objective — kill or take hostage as many Jews as possible, a step on the way to their overall goal of implementing a “final solution,” eliminating Jews from the Middle East. It marks a turning point in world politics. The slaughter horrified working people worldwide.
Hamas leaders knew their murderous assault would lead to Israeli retaliation, including striking military targets in Gaza, which Hamas deliberately places in residential neighborhoods to maximize civilian casualties. They calculate this will get Washington and imperialist governments in Europe to pressure the Israeli rulers to compromise.
The bourgeois clerical regime in Iran trained, financed and helped direct this assault, together with Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and others in Tehran’s “axis of resistance.”
Thousands of middle-class radicals and others have taken to the streets in the U.S. and elsewhere to celebrate the Tehran-Hamas slaughter of Jews. They say there are no civilians in Israel, only colonists, and every Jew there is a legitimate target.
As the worldwide capitalist economic and social crisis unfolds, Jew-hatred will grow in the U.S. and around the world. As the bosses see their rule threatened by rising class struggle, they will increasingly turn to fascist forces to use Jew-hatred to try and divide working people and defend the continued existence of capitalist exploitation and oppression. That is the lesson of the Holocaust.
“Take control of the kibbutz, kill as many individuals as possible, and capture hostages until receiving further instructions,” read the orders carried by the Hamas death squad sent to attack the Sa’ad collective farm in the Negev.
They raped women, murdered children, burned down homes with entire families inside and took 200-250 hostages back to Gaza, who they hope to use as a bargaining chip. Proud of their pogrom, Hamas operatives videotaped some of their atrocities and posted them on the internet.
At the single largest massacre, the Supernova music festival attended by 3,500 unarmed young people just miles from the Gaza border, Hamas slaughtered 260 people in less than six hours. Arriving via paragliders, motorcycles and trucks, wearing body armor and firing AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, death squads attacked from three sides.
Tehran threatens ‘earthquake’
On Oct. 14 Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with Hezbollah leaders in Beirut. “I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” he said, warning Israel not to invade Gaza or it would suffer “a huge earthquake.” Tehran has equipped Hezbollah with tens of thousands of guided missiles and advanced weaponry.
Traveling to Qatar, the Iranian minister warmly greeted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. He also went to Iraq and Syria, to meet with Tehran-led militias there.
As of Oct. 17, more than 1,400 Israeli citizens, immigrant workers or international visitors had been killed in the attack and 4,200 wounded, most in the first 24 hours.
As Hamas thugs spread death and injuries in Israeli farming communities along the border with Gaza, they were routed in a few areas by fast-acting local defense guards.
Inbar Lieberman, the 25-year-old coordinator of the security team at Kibbutz Nir Am, realized that the sounds of explosions were different than the usual rocket fire from Gaza. She rushed to open the armory and distributed guns to the 12-member resident defense force there. They set up ambushes that turned the tables against Hamas terrorists, defeating them in a more than four-hour battle.
After the initial massacre, the Israel Defense Forces responded, striking military targets inside Gaza and retaking 22 towns and military posts Hamas had infiltrated.
The Israeli government called up 360,000 reservists, now massed along the Gaza border.
Israeli forces have been bombing hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets, especially in their key bases in and around Gaza City. Their goal is to eliminate Hamas’ leadership and murderous fighting capacity.
Hamas puts its military positions near or inside civilian areas, seeing deaths there as a means to pressure the U.S., U.N. and other governments to press Israel to back off and to keep “aid” flowing, which Hamas diverts to military purposes.
The IDF told 1.1 million Gazans to leave Gaza City and go south. This will allow Israeli forces to target Hamas and Islamic Jihad, while minimizing civilian casualties.
Despite calls by Hamas to ignore the evacuation order — including by setting up roadblocks to slow people leaving — Gazans are following the Israeli instruction, and at least 400,000 have already left northern Gaza.
The Israeli government has restarted water supplies to the south of Gaza and said food and medicine will be allowed in from the entry point from Egypt located there.
Some Democratic Party politicians and liberal capitalist media in the U.S. have been demanding Israel implement an immediate cease-fire and lift the siege.
On Oct. 17 a rocket exploded near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Hamas said it killed hundreds there. Backed by Tehran, Hamas blamed Israeli forces, fueling protests worldwide. But Israeli officials have offered proof the explosion was caused by an Islamic Jihad missile fired from behind the hospital that went awry and ignited ammunition stored right next to it.
The Israeli government has released intercepted Hamas communications pointing to Islamic Jihad as the source of the missile as well as satellite images of the missile’s flight and impact.
Deaths caused by Hamas, Tehran
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaderships have a practice of using the people of Gaza as human shields, firing rockets from heavily populated areas, putting command posts and ammunition dumps near and under schools, mosques, apartment buildings and health facilities, hoping for “martyrs” it can use.
Responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza falls on Hamas, Tehran and Islamic Jihad, not Israel.
Washington is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel to join another already there. First and foremost, their goal is to protect U.S. imperialist interests in the region.
Opposition to Tehran’s expansionism
While the bourgeois-clerical regime in Tehran claims it speaks in the name of the Iranian people, inside Iran there is more debate and opposition to the reactionary government’s moves to extend its counterrevolutionary reach abroad.
Fatemeh Sepehri, a prominent political prisoner held in Vakil Abad prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad, took advantage of a move to the hospital for surgery to record a video denouncing the regime’s support for Hamas’ pogrom.
“The Islamic Republic and its agents spend Iran’s wealth to buy bullets and attack Israel,” Sepehri said. “We, the people of Iran, do not want war and the killing of defenseless people.”