Hamas still holds some 100 hostages captive in Gaza, while it uses hospitals to base its fighters and weapons, disrupts the distribution of humanitarian aid and proclaims it will continue to carry out anti-Jewish pogroms like Oct. 7 “again and again.” Its actions show why Israel is determined to fight to the end to dismantle the reactionary group.
The Joseph Biden White House is ratcheting up pressure on Israel to end its military operations in Gaza and sign on to a long-term cease-fire with Hamas. But this would leave the Jew-hating Islamist group — part of Tehran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria and Iraq and the Houthi thugs in Yemen — intact and able to carry out future massacres.
Hamas death squads murdered 1,200 people in Israel Oct. 7, wounded more than 5,000 and took over 250 hostages, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
Biden dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Tel Aviv to tell Israeli leaders that a new offensive in Rafah would cross a “red line.” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied that there is no way to defeat Hamas without going after the terror group’s remaining battalions, who are hiding in tunnels in Rafah. Netanyahu said he told Blinken March 22, “I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S., but if we have to — we will do it alone.”
This offensive will require removing a million civilians from the area. Israel is prepared to organize this, and tens of thousands of Gazans there already began traveling out of the area.
The imperialist rulers in Washington do not design their actions to advance the interests of Jews in Israel or anyone else. They are only concerned about their own economic and political interests, in the Middle East and everywhere else.
When asked what the Biden administration will do if Israel ignores the U.S. warning, Vice President Kamala Harris told ABC News March 24, “I am ruling out nothing,” hinting that Washington could stop sending arms to Israel.
The next day, Washington refused to veto a new U.N. Security Council resolution calling for imposition of a “lasting cease-fire” in Gaza. To mask its anti-Israel thrust, the resolution urges the release of the hostages, without once mentioning Hamas or linking their release as a precondition to any cease-fire.
Hamas was ecstatic. It then announced it rejected a U.S.-brokered deal — accepted by Israeli officials — for a six-week cease-fire and freeing hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel on charges of terrorism in exchange for the release of 40 women, children, sick or elderly hostages.
Killing the deal is a “sad testament to the damage caused” by Washington’s green light for the Security Council resolution, Netanyahu said.
The destruction of Hamas will not put an end to Jew-hatred. But it would open up space for working people in Gaza to fight to forge an alternative to Hamas and increase opportunities for working people in Israel and around the region, whatever their religious beliefs or nationality, to join together to fight for their common class interests. It would set back the reactionary forces that carry out Jew-hating attacks worldwide.
Hamas, UN spread lies, distortions
Hamas has put together a massive international propaganda machine — with the help of the middle-class left and Stalinist groups of all stripes — to spread lies about what is happening in Gaza and blame the suffering there on Israel.
Hamas hopes to get bourgeois regimes around the world to increase pressure on Israel to end the war, leaving its forces still intact. In Hamas’ eyes, the more Palestinian “martyrs” the better for its propaganda.
The line of liberal bourgeois newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, ignoring these realities, just gives cover to Hamas. They routinely cite figures from the Gaza Health Ministry as if they are true, without mentioning that Hamas runs that group and is the source of the statistics it releases. Hamas officials boast they took over the government in Gaza nearly two decades ago to provide cover for their preparations to destroy Israel and expel the Jews.
United Nations agencies have also promoted Hamas propaganda in U.N.-run schools and social services. A number of U.N. staff also took part in the Oct. 7 pogrom. They allowed Hamas to dedicate funds it controlled to build tunnels and buy weapons and ammunition.
In the latest repackaging of Hamas lies, the United Nations Human Rights Council March 25 released a report, “Anatomy of a Genocide,” by special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
Albanese charges that “after five months of military operations Israel has destroyed Gaza.” Turning reality on its head, she spreads the lie that Israel uses “‘humanitarian camouflage’ to legitimize its genocidal violence in Gaza.”
The U.N. still refuses to admit that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Iran-financed death squads raped and mutilated dozens of women on Oct. 7. The U.N. has never admitted that Oct. 7 was an anti-Jewish pogrom, covering up Hamas’ real avowed goal — which is genocidal — the elimination of Jews.
Starting March 18, Israeli soldiers began a new operation raiding Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. In the early stages of the war they had destroyed extensive tunnels and weapons found there. But after Israeli forces departed, Hamas and Islamic Jihad returned in force, again using the hundreds of patients and medical personnel there as a shield for its deadly military operations.
The Hamas thugs have barricaded themselves inside the emergency room and maternity ward and tossed explosives from the burn unit, Israeli officials report, and have fired mortars at the hospital.
The new Israeli operation has so far captured 500 more Hamas combatants at the hospital complex, killed 170 and seized arms and ammunition. Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, tied to Hamas ally Hezbollah, admitted that senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders were killed or detained in the fighting.
What more proof is needed of how Hamas uses hospitals, patients, doctors and others as human shields? But the spin doctors at the Washington Post headlined their article — “Israeli raid on al-Shifa Hospital deepens suffering in Gaza’s north,” looking to mask that reality.