Israel’s new offensive in Gaza is aimed at decisively defeating Hamas to prevent it from organizing more murderous pogroms against Jews.
Combined with the ongoing protests against Hamas by Palestinians in Gaza, this marks a turning point in the fight to defend Israel as a refuge for the Jews, one that can open new opportunities for common struggles by working people throughout the Middle East, struggles that can increase prospects for forging a working-class leadership to unite Jewish, Arab and other working people.
Undeterred by assassinations, beatings and threats by Hamas thugs, Gazans have continued to protest since actions broke out March 25 and spread to at least six cities. Hundreds of Palestinians marched in Jabaliya in northern Gaza April 6 demanding an end to Hamas’ rule and to the war. They chanted, “Hamas is a terrorist organization!” and “Hamas is trash!”
The courage and determination of working people there to get Hamas’ boot off their necks — after nearly 20 years of the Tehran-backed group’s bloody dictatorial rule — is shaking things up and will reverberate throughout the Middle East.
“I was as surprised as everyone at these brave actions,” Yaniv Bar Ilan, a spokesperson for Koach LaOvdim (Power to the Workers), a union federation that organizes Jewish, Arab and immigrant workers in Israel, told the Militant by phone April 4. “They showed that the people of Gaza don’t associate themselves with Hamas. Time will tell if they have the needed strength.”
Hamas’ thuggish control of humanitarian aid is deepening opposition to its rule. After its goons shot and killed Abdul Rahman, who was waiting in line for a sack of flour, the young man’s clan retaliated, executing the Hamas member they believed responsible.
Hamas’ support is also declining on the West Bank. Despite a call for a mass protest to show support for Hamas in Ramallah — which is under the rule of the Palestinian Authority — less than 70 people showed up, according to Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian Christian from Ramallah who now lives in the U.S.
Hamas backers silent about protests
Apologists for Hamas around the world have been silent about the protests in Gaza. That’s because the protests expose the falsity of their claims that Hamas is the voice of the Palestinian people.
There are more than 250,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, many in refugee camps, denied equal rights there by a government dominated by Hamas’ ally Hezbollah; 400,000 in Syria, who faced brutality by the now-overthrown Tehran-allied Bashar al-Assad dictatorship; and more than 2 million Palestinians who are citizens of Jordan. As they follow what is unfolding in Gaza, its impact on them will grow.
In their drive to dupe people around the world into believing Israel is committing “genocide,” the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health manipulates and exaggerates casualty figures. The bourgeois liberal news media routinely repeats Hamas’ unsubstantiated “statistics” that more than 50,000 people have died since Oct. 8, 2023, and then claims the majority are women and children.
But a study by Honest Reporting found that the ministry’s March fatality report quietly dropped 3,400 previously reported as “identified deaths.”
The ministry’s “corrected” report shows that 72% of those between the ages of 13 and 55 on its list of the dead — the general combat age for Hamas death squads — are men. Israeli officials say that about 20,000 of the deaths are combatants.
Many children and women have been killed in Gaza. The responsibility for this rests with Hamas, which continues to use them as human shields, placing its armed combatants in residential shelters, mosques, schools, hospitals and U.N. facilities. In a direct rejection of Hamas’ death-cult glorification of “martyrs,” protesters at the various demonstrations carried signs reading, “the children of Palestine want to live.”
Israeli army switches gears
“We switched gears” with the renewed offensive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said April 2. Not only have troops from the Israel Defense Forces retaken the Netzarim corridor, which divides Gaza in half, they also evacuated civilians from Rafah in the south, encircled it and cut it off from nearby Khan Younis.
The goal is to keep getting civilians out of the way and to safety, to step up the pressure on Hamas, degrade its military capabilities and “governing” authority and free the Israeli hostages. This also opens up space for working people to stand up to the Nazi-like group.
The Joseph Biden administration had constantly pressured Israel to end the war on Hamas and find a way to make peace with it. Its approach was shared by Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, until recently the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, and other anti-Netanyahu army and intelligence officials. They claimed Hamas cannot be militarily defeated and that a political settlement, leaving Hamas with considerable influence, was inevitable. But these were in fact rationalizations for advancing Washington’s chief concern — ensuring stability in the region for U.S. imperialism’s own economic and political interests, regardless of what it means for Jews.
The shift to intensify the war until Hamas is decisively defeated and all the hostages are freed has been facilitated by the Donald Trump administration’s lifting of restrictions on military aid to Israel and by changes in the command structure of the Israel Defense Forces. On March 5 Netanyahu replaced Halevi with Eyal Zamir, an officer formerly in the army’s armored tank division.
Dangers of U.S. intervention
The Israeli government is also seeking to eliminate Tehran’s capacity to produce and launch nuclear weapons that could threaten a new Holocaust.
Ending the threat of the nuclear annihilation of Israel is in the interest of working people everywhere.
Washington is on a different course. U.S. imperialism’s intervention is aimed at defending its domination of shipping lanes and its rulers’ profits, investments and influence, not the interests of Jews, Israel, or workers at home or anywhere in the region. Working people should unconditionally demand U.S. hands off the Middle East.
Since taking office the Trump administration has increased financial sanctions on Iran — which hit working people there the hardest — and has threatened military action if Tehran does not heed Washington’s demands.
The Pentagon sent the USS Carl Vinson and its strike group to the Red Sea where it will join the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group. Each nuclear-powered aircraft carrier can launch 150 daily air sorties and 900 precision-guided missiles.
Tehran and Trump announced April 7 that they had agreed to begin negotiations April 12.