By Miguel Angel Hernandez, a leader of the PSL of Venezuela and the IWU-FI
24 May 2025. For almost three months, Netanyahu’s far-right government has imposed a criminal blockade on the Gaza Strip, preventing the entry of food, water, medicine, and fuel, and restricting electricity.
Israel aims to cleanse Gaza through starvation and displacement.
Gaza is facing a dire humanitarian situation. The danger of famine is increasing. The UN warns 14,000 babies risk death without immediate food. Half a million people (20 per cent of the population) are at risk of starvation, according to reports from the same organisation. The World Health Organisation has reported that 57 children have died of malnutrition since March, when Israel began the Gaza blockade.
Netanyahu and Ethnic Cleansing
In March, the Zionist regime of Israel broke the truce and resumed bombing, as part of a new offensive launched on 18 May, dubbed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots.”
The criminal Netanyahu said that this new offensive was to seize Gaza territory and they would not retreat. He stated in a Zionist parliamentary committee: “We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable result will be the desire of Gazans to emigrate from the Gaza Strip.”
A 13 May statement announcing a new military operation cited a lack of host countries as the main resettlement obstacle. “If we offer them the chance to leave, over 50 per cent will leave, and I think many more. But Hamas will be gone.”
The aim is clear: to take complete control of Gaza, expel the Palestinian people from their lands and homes, and turn the strip into a resort, as Trump announced.
Global pressure forces Israel to allow minimal humanitarian aid
After placing the Palestinian people in Gaza on the brink of famine, necessity compelled Netanyahu to allow a minimal amount of humanitarian aid. Between Monday, 19 May and Friday, 23 May, some 385 trucks with food, medicine, and other goods entered the Gaza Strip. Many of these goods took a long time to actually reach the Gazans. These amounts are still insufficient, given that during the truce, up to 600 trucks of humanitarian aid entered daily, and thousands more are currently waiting at the border.
This shift in the Israeli government has not been for humanitarian reasons. Netanyahu admits governments seeking Israel’s victory pressured this cold, calculated decision.
With characteristic brutality, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich asked, “Would you prefer not to send a single grain of food to Gaza, not even to civilians?”
Government pressure on Israel is driven by mobilisation
Several voices from international organisations have denounced the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe, providing a new impetus to mobilisations around the world, especially in Europe. This situation coincided with the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, when thousands mobilised around the world against their governments and to support the Palestinian people’s struggle. On 10 May in Madrid, over 80,000 people took to the streets, demanding an end to arms sales to Israel and a severance of relations; in The Hague, Netherlands, on 18 May, 100,000 marched, demanding the government end its support for Israel; in London, nearly half a million people marched on 17 May.
A 19 May statement from France, Canada, and the UK condemned Israel’s offensive, demanding a ceasefire and citing intolerable suffering in Gaza. Eighteen other countries demanded the immediate resumption of full aid to the Gaza Strip.
Capitalist governments in Europe and elsewhere are not questioning Israel out of humanity, but because of the firm pressure of the mass movement, which could eventually generate crises within their regimes.
The political crisis in Israel continues
Meanwhile, protests continue in Israel, now daily, demanding an end to the war and the return of the hostages held by the Palestinian resistance. These mobilisations are the backdrop to a continuing political crisis.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview on 4 April that Israel was going through “the most serious crisis in its history.” He later stated on 21 May: “What Israel is currently doing in Gaza is very close to a war crime.”
Golan’s remarks, echoing Olmert’s, condemned Israel’s actions against civilians.
Olmert, Golan, and other leaders critical of Netanyahu’s government are as Zionist and anti-Palestinian as he is. However, the global mobilisation against genocide, and the continuous marches and expressions of rejection of the government in Israel, are causing a major political crisis within Zionism, revealing political contradictions and differences. Golan, Olmert, Benny Gantz, and others are among those who advocate for the failed two-state solution and differ from Netanyahu and his far-right ministers on the pace and methods of confronting the Palestinian resistance.
Deepen the global mobilisation to support Palestinian resistance
The IWU-FI says that we must continue mobilising worldwide for the Palestinian people and the resistance.
For 15 June, organisations from more than 20 countries are planning a “March on Gaza”. They will march to the Egyptian-Gaza border, at the Rafah crossing, to demand the breaking of the siege and the opening of the border to allow free entry of humanitarian aid and all expressions of support for the Palestinian people.
The IWU-FI joins the call for this mobilisation and calls for united support actions throughout the world on that day. We support the immediate opening of border crossings to enter food, medicine, fuel, and water, and the restoration of electricity.
The IWU-FI demands all governments around the world, and especially the Arab and Middle Eastern regimes, stop political, diplomatic, commercial, cultural, and academic relations with Israel. And with the Arab governments, to support the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and the West Bank with weapons and resources. Support an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon. We reject the ethnic cleansing promoted by Trump and Netanyahu, as well as the US and Israeli bombings of Yemen. We reject Israel and Trump’s plan to militarise and privatise the delivery of humanitarian aid.
IWU-FI condemns the illegal detention and threat of deportation of activists defending Palestinian freedom, as has happened in the United States and Germany. We demand the severance of political, diplomatic, commercial, cultural, and academic relations with Israel. We demand a single, secular, democratic, and non-racist Palestine. A free Palestine from the river to the sea!
