IWU-FI Press
In Gaza, Israeli soldiers shot at a crowd gathered to receive humanitarian aid. They killed more than a hundred people and wounded over 800.
The Zionist state of Israel, hand in hand with its far-right government and its murderous army, has committed a new massacre. We could say that it is one more in the systematic massacres it has been carrying out since the invasion of the Gaza Strip last October. But we must not get used to it. We cannot normalise yet another act of this genocide. This is happening on the same day that the number of dead (killed) in Gaza exceeded 30,000 people and maybe more.
Here, the Zionist army fired on a crowd of Gazans who huddled in desperation in front of a food distribution site on Al Rashid Street in the south-east of Gaza City, in the famine deliberately provoked by Israel in the Strip. A 32-truck convoy of humanitarian aid had arrived there and the hungry crowd came forward to receive some. The Zionist troops fired on them: besides the dead and wounded, there were undoubtedly those killed and wounded by the stampede, several of them crushed by the convoy’s trucks. Israel tried to mask the massacre as a “stampede”, but the facts are clear: thousands of victims in Shima Hospital with wounds from shrapnel, bullets, and ammunition. More than a hundred have been killed and over 800 wounded.
The Zionist government cynically referred to the deaths as an “incident” and claimed an “avalanche caused them, ” but also admitted to opening fire on a perceived threat. The Israeli communique acknowledges the famine and disaster faced by 2.2 to 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza. And the Zionist army fired on a simple queue of people waiting for food.
This massacre is beside those that the Zionist state and its occupying government have been systematically carried out daily. Similar to South Africa, the Zionist government is openly “emptying” Gaza, revealing an apartheid regime. Specifically, it is destroying what until now has been a veritable open-air ghetto. Dramatically similar to what the Nazis did when they liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943.
Faced with this genocide and ethnic cleansing, worldwide condemnation is mounting. From the lukewarm protests of European imperialist governments to the more emphatic protests of others such as Brazil, to South Africa’s advocacy of condemnation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In the case of this massacre, the UN Security Council itself was forced to deal with the case, in a meeting demanded by 14 of its 15 members, where once again, as always, the simple text of condemnation was vetoed by the US government.
This is not enough. Governments and organisations still support Israel’s apartheid policy against Palestinians. What is growing, and multiplying, is the repudiation of people around the world. With mass demonstrations in the major cities on the five continents. An impactful event occurred a few days ago when American soldier Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the Israeli embassy in Washington, speaking out against genocide.
From the International Workers’ Unity Fourth International (IWU-FI) we repudiate this new massacre, a sign of the genocide being carried out by Zionism. And we call for a redoubling of support and solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. We demand all governments break off relations with Israel. Let us continue to be thousands on the streets, shouting against the Zionist occupation and massacre and supporting the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people!
International Workers’ Unity – Fourth International (IWU-FI)
2nd March 2024
