Two videos released by Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad are the latest gruesome proof of why Israel must defeat and destroy the Tehran-backed group. In the videos the Jew-hating thugs proudly show the barbaric affects of their nearly two years of torture and deliberate starvation of Israeli hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski.
Braslavski, denied medical care in addition to food, can no longer walk. An emaciated David is shown in a tunnel, digging what his captors forced him to call his future grave. Hamas ends the video with its signature graphic of an hour glass filled with blood, announcing that “time is running out!”
Nazi-inspired Hamas started the war Oct. 7, 2023, by slaughtering 1,200 people in the largest anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust. Its founding covenant calls for killing all the Jews. Hamas tortures and murders Palestinians in Gaza who stand up to its brutal control. It violently disrupts the delivery of food to Gaza, then blames Israel for hunger there, and continues to use the people of Gaza as human shields while claiming Israel is causing genocide.
Soon after the Oct. 7 pogrom, Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said that slaughter was “just the first time. There will be a second, a third, a fourth.” Hamas — backed by Tehran and encouraged by increasing acts of Jew-hating violence worldwide — cannot be controlled or contained. It must be destroyed in order to defend the existence of Israel as a refuge for Jews, and to open a door for Israeli, Palestinian and other workers to fight for their own class interests.
In defending itself against Hamas, Israel has had to stand up to pressure from the U.S. rulers and other capitalist governments around the world, U.N. agencies, and meritocratic layers inside Israel, all of whom have their own reasons for opposing the destruction of Hamas.
False charges of famine, genocide
Since Oct. 7, Israel has made big gains against Hamas and the Tehran-organized and led “axis of resistance.” It decimated Hezbollah in Lebanon and struck blows to the Houthis in Yemen. Its actions paved the way for the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria.
Israel has taken control of 75% of Gaza and put in place a food distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to bypass Hamas control. It’s precisely at the moment that Israel is closest to dealing a definitive blow to Hamas that the hue and cry by imperialist governments and the bourgeois media that Israel is deliberately starving people in Gaza is the loudest.
There is hunger in parts of Gaza, but it’s because Hamas appropriates food and other aid to keep its thugs and supporters well-fed, diverts some to sell at high prices in the market and threatens any Gazan who helps Israel-organized aid operations.
Since Hamas’ pogrom started the current war, Israel has facilitated the delivery of more than 1.3 million tons of food, some 90,000 truckloads. Hamas fears this will further weaken its control.
“Israel is delivering fuel, food, medicine and water into territory still under the command of the very group that murdered its civilians on October 7,” notes John Spencer, the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point.
To limit Hamas’ ability to use the food aid to strengthen its hand, Israel, with help from Washington, set up three food distribution centers in southern Gaza run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. But U.N. agencies, with a history of collaboration with Hamas, and other so-called nonprofits have refused to work with it.
The foundation is distributing the equivalent of some 1.7 million meals a day, despite these obstacles. Israel, in addition, has been facilitating the distribution of food by some U.N. agencies and others.
Lies about genocide
Like its lies about “famine” in Gaza, Hamas claims Israel is committing “genocide.”
Israel is in a life-or-death war with Hamas. The thug outfit and its allies are ensconced in fortified tunnels underground, using the civilians above ground as human shields. Amid the war Israel has coordinated millions of vaccine doses for Gazans and enabled 36,000 people to leave the territory for medical treatment abroad.
The Israel Defense Forces often warns civilians with text messages, phone calls and leaflets to get out of harm’s way when they plan an attack. Israeli troops under fire have often been ordered not to shoot back because civilians could be wounded or killed.
That is not to say that the IDF, a capitalist army, does not carry out injustices, abuses, or isn’t responsible for avoidable deaths.
And unlike in most other wars, Palestinians who want to escape the fighting are trapped in Gaza. Egyptian government troops on the border bar them from leaving.
The force with genocidal intent in Gaza is Hamas. Its goal is to destroy Israel and kill or expel all the Jews who live there.
Two-state solution?
The governments of the United Kingdom, France and Canada, along with the Arab League, have threatened to recognize a Palestinian state. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer says London will do so unless Israel takes “substantive steps” to end the war in Gaza.
They present this as a way to force Israel to stop “starving” Gaza. But their real goal is to prevent a total Israeli defeat of Hamas.
In today’s reality, the imposition of a Palestinian “state” would leave Hamas intact and in charge of Gaza, regardless of the varying proposals about who else could control the territory. The Palestinian Authority was in charge there when Israel pulled out in 2005, and in short order they were attacked and driven out by Hamas. Hamas’ existence is a dagger aimed at the heart of the Jewish people.
The Donald Trump administration opposes calls for a “two-state” solution for now and claims it supports ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza. But its focus is on pressuring Israel’s government to wind down the war and reach a “deal.”
The Atlantic recently quoted two unnamed administration officials who say that Trump is complaining that Netanyahu is “prolonging” the war in Gaza and undermining efforts to reach a ceasefire. U.S. imperialism’s only interest is stability to pursue its exploitation of the region.
The pressure to end the war on Hamas is reflected inside Israel, where a meritocratic layer of officials in the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet intelligence agency and bourgeois opposition parties have been waging a quasi-civil war to try to oust Netanyahu, acting as a transmission belt for U.S. imperialist interests.
After dealing blows to Tehran, the Netanyahu government announced it was accelerating the army’s Operation Gideon’s Chariot aimed at completing the defeat of Hamas.
But the leadership of the Israel Defense Forces has been resisting Netanyahu’s plans to relocate more Palestinians to southern Gaza and incorporate the entire territory into Israel. On Aug. 4, Army Radio quoted IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir as saying “efforts must be made to reach a deal” with Hamas.
These are not tactical questions. If Hamas is allowed to remain in Gaza and regroup, it will set the stage for more pogroms, and a drive for a new Holocaust. But a decisive Israeli military victory and incorporation of Palestinians into Israel would be a powerful blow, eliminating the central obstacle to the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
It would open the road for working people — Jews, Arabs, immigrants and others — to come together in common struggle as the capitalist crisis deepens today and in the years ahead.
Israel wants regime change in Iran
Israel’s 12-day war against Tehran, including its capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons, was closely watched by working people in Iran and its targeted strikes widely supported. This threat to the existence of Israel has been seriously set back.
A few weeks before that war began, independent owner-operator truck drivers held the largest and broadest nationwide working-class action since the consolidation of the counterrevolution in Iran in the early 1980s. The strike was a sign of the growing confidence of working people and oppressed nationalities, and opposition to Iran’s capitalist rulers.
In explaining Israel’s move to take out Tehran’s nuclear weapons capacity, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a message to the people of Iran in the opening hours of the war, “As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom.”
The Israeli forces killed top Tehran military commanders and destroyed headquarters of the hated Basij paramilitary thugs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, all of which have been responsible for killing peaceful protesters and arresting union leaders and members. The IDF launched an attack aimed at the entrance to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, which holds many political and union prisoners. Several dozen prisoners were able to escape.
“This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard,” Netanyahu said.
These openings for working people and oppressed nationalities in Iran would have been even more decisive except that the U.S. government stepped in, bombing Iran’s three main nuclear sites and then announcing the war was over.
The U.S. capitalist rulers do not want working people in Iran to overturn the regime. They fear workers, farmers and oppressed nationalities acting in their own interests. Instead, Washington looks to include a weakened Tehran among its allies as it seeks to further its domination and plunder of the Middle East.
Fearing more struggles by working people, the regime arrested hundreds during and after the war, targeting especially Baluchis, Arabs, Kurds and Jews, accusing them of being Israeli agents.
But soon after the war ended, working people were once again protesting in the streets.