In one more reflection of the growing opposition to Hamas and its Jew-hating allies in Gaza, Mohammad Sakr, head of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, called on armed thugs of Islamic Jihad to stop using the medical facility as a military base. His statement comes in the wake of continuing protests by thousands in several areas of Gaza demanding “Hamas out.”
Sakr wrote on Facebook that he had asked Islamic Jihad to leave the hospital to prevent it from being a military target, given the huge need for medical care during the war. “Now I am being blatantly threatened,” he said, reporting that Islamic Jihad wrote him, “You’ve crossed the line — be careful. This is your first warning.”
Hamas apologists — echoed by anti-Israel liberal bourgeois news media like the New York Times and the Washington Post — repeatedly claim that Israeli forces attack hospitals in Gaza to target civilians.
But it’s no secret to anyone in Gaza that Hamas and Islamic Jihad routinely place their command posts and ammunition stores in hospitals, schools, residences, mosques and U.N. compounds. The Tehran-backed group knows that Israeli policy is to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas is willing to sacrifice countless numbers of Palestinian lives and then accuse Israel of “genocide.”
What’s different now is that more Palestinians in Gaza are speaking out, denouncing Hamas as terrorist and calling for the release of the Israeli hostages. More information continues to come out on the brutal torture of the hostages, including the 24 still believed to be alive.
The Nazi-like group, backed by the reactionary regime in Tehran, never had majority support in Gaza. For nearly 20 years it has terrorized the population.
But with Israeli advances against Hamas — Israeli soldiers now control one-third of the territory — growing numbers of Palestinians in Gaza and beyond are willing to speak out against its reactionary course.
Palestinians on the West Bank
This is also true on the West Bank. Israel wrested control of the West Bank from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War, after launching a preemptive strike ahead of a planned assault by neighboring Arab regimes aimed at destroying Israel.
Today 60% of the West Bank is under Israeli control, 18% ruled by the Palestinian Authority and 22% by Palestinian civil authority in cooperation with Israeli police. Some 3 million Palestinians live there, interspersed with more than 500,000 Israeli citizens in a patchwork of settlements scattered throughout the territory.
Hamas tries to take advantage of the anger of many Palestinians that’s fueled by disputes over access to water, restrictions by the Israeli government on their rights and access to land, and violent attacks and harassment by right-wing elements among the settlers. Hamas hopes to channel this into Jew-hatred and its murderous assaults on Jews.
Since the Hamas-organized Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Jewish pogrom, there has been an increase in clashes in the West Bank between Israeli soldiers and Hamas and Islamic Jihad thugs. The Iranian regime continues to find ways to smuggle in weapons and explosives.
But interviews by Corey Gil-Shuster in Ramallah March 29 and Bethlehem April 5 and in nearby villages in the wake of the protests in Gaza, puncture the myth that most Palestinians want the destruction of Israel.
Gil-Shuster produces the Ask Project videos, which he posts on YouTube, asking questions proposed by his viewers. The question this time was “Do you want more Oct. 7th style attacks?”
Ahmad in Ramallah said he was in favor of more attacks no matter how many Palestinian people die when Israel responds. “You can’t have peace with Jews,” he said. “You can’t have peace with enemies.” He claimed “not less than 98%” on the West Bank agree with him.
But only one other person interviewed held similar views.
‘We want to live with the Jews’
“Nobody wants a war,” said Amar in Bethlehem. “We want to live with the Jews.” Gil-Shuster seemed surprised, saying, “He said the Jews?” The Arabic-language translator confirmed, “Yes, he said the Jews.”
“We want to live in peace,” said another man. “We don’t agree with killing from our side or their side.”
“We don’t want to make excuses for Oct. 7,” said Mohammad in Ramallah. “At the same time it’s unfair that Gaza has been under siege for so long.”
Several of those interviewed said they wanted peace and also criticized the policies of the Israeli government in the West Bank. One said, “They occupied our land and do not allow us everything.”
The changing attitudes and courage of workers, farmers and fishermen in Gaza and the West Bank in opposing the anti-working-class course of Hamas shows the possibilities for advancing common struggles by working people — Arabs, Jews, Christians and others — in the region.
Debate in Israel over the war
Meanwhile, bourgeois political competitors of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel have been holding protests demanding he end the war, negotiate with Hamas and make freeing the hostages his top priority. One action involved some 200,000 people March 22.
More than 1,000 air force veterans and other reservists, including former members of the military brass, have signed an open letter calling for “the return of the hostages now and the cessation of fighting.” They claim that Netanyahu is waging the war for “personal interests,” not to defend the existence of Israel.
While Netanyahu is a capitalist politician who seeks to collaborate with U.S. imperialism, he acts on the understanding that Hamas, backed by Tehran, has not abandoned its goal of destroying Israel and eliminating the Jews and it must be dismantled.
But the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois currents that are at the heart of the anti-Netanyahu protests operate on the dangerous illusion that Hamas can be contained and doesn’t need to be uprooted. Their views are reinforced by the stance of the U.S. imperialist rulers whose overriding concern is achieving stability for their own economic and political interests across the region, not preventing future pogroms.
Most working people in Israel understand that Hamas leaders are telling the truth when they say that they plan to carry out massacres like Oct. 7 “again and again.” They want the renewed offensive to continue until victory.